


Holiday In Hell

by melocallia



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Original Character(s), Phase Two (Gorillaz)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-06-23 04:10:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15597999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/melocallia/pseuds/melocallia
Summary: Murdoc is losing his beauty sleep. The only way to get it back is to head to Hell to retrieve the person who is at the center of it. Join him, 2D, Russel and Noodle as they go not only on an adventure but a Holiday they will never forget.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a labor of love. What started out as a one shot became much more. At one point it was considered for a graphic novel too. Each Section is an individual story of our band mates. The prologue (written in a interview format) kinda sucks; I could never figure out how to improve it and is not the best part of the story but it sets it up in a fun way. I hope it makes you curious to read on! Thanks so much for reading my story.

PART I  
PROLOGUE (EXTENDED MIX)

_Once upon a time there was a man named Murdoc Niccals._  
_Well, maybe not a man. He really was an egotistical, whoring, chain-smoking, boozing Satanist (whew) who just happened to also be a bassist in a famous rock band._  
_O.K. we’ll call him a man in this story just for fun, even though we all know the truth._  
_Come to think of it, it’s because of him this story even exists, so maybe we should cut him a little slack. Maybe not._  
_It began when in his travels looking for the next best thing and creating general mayhem, he met an American woman, Jeena. A frustrated, depressed housewife who felt like her whole life had become an endless destiny of drudgery and emptiness. Married to a traditional, rigid man, he controlled her life by continually tightening the hold he had on her. The longer she stayed the less strength she had to fight, with even her children, who were the one bright spot in her life, became beyond her reach as she sank deeper._

Russel: Frustrated? She was down right suicidal when I first met her.

  
Noodle: Yes, that would be most depressing, but then she had been with Muds and that would make anybody feel like life was no longer worth living.

_Excuse me, who are you? Can’t you see I am trying to tell a story here?_

2D: We’re the band, mate!

  
N: You seem to be starting off rough, so we thought you could use a little help.

_Ah, yes. The Gorillaz. Your help is gladly taken. Wait! I only see three of you. Where is Murdoc?_

R: He’s off on some sord of a trip. Or is he tripping out? Whatever, he isn’t here.

_So we can talk about him behind his back?_

N: You betcha!

_Lovely!_

2D: Are you God?

_No. I am just the narrator of this story._

R: It’s about Murdoc, isn’t it? How come he always gets the good stories?

_It’s really not like that. He just gets more press because he is the most likely to find himself in the middle of something messy among you four. Besides, everyone likes to talk about people like that; it makes them feel better about themselves._

R: You have a point.

_Anyway, guys you should know that this is leading up to include everyone. We just have to go through the past first to get to the future._

2D: We’re in the future? I thought you couldn’t be in the future because then it would be the present. Or is it the present is the future’s past yesterday’s tomorrow for . . .

_Wait! You’re going to hurt yourself. I see everyone was telling the truth about you. Let me help you. This is a prologue. It tells you about stuff that happens before the story begins so you will understand why some things have to and (or) had to happen._

R: His head’s smoking man. You’re just making it worse.

_O.K. how’s this? 2D? Sit back, relax and listen to a really good story that you’re in._

  
2D: Right mate. Get on with it.

_Now Jeena always knew that there was more to her than what she showed and had finally realized she had trapped herself in a place that had slowly been eating her away. She saw it as being in a cage. Of her making mind you, but a cage none the less and she had given away the key. One night, after this little epiphany, Jeena found herself sitting alone on a park bench crying while trying to think of how to end her misery. Then an odd looking British man walked by, stopped and came back to sit down next to her striking up a conversation._

R: Odd looking? The man has green skin, a busted up nose and a red pupil. I think your being way too generous with your description.

  
N: Don’t forget he smells too.

_All right, I’ll be more direct next time._

2D: He was going way outside the box when it came to her. She was far from his usual taste of his Goth groupies. Hell, she was even....how old was she, ninety-three?

  
R: I think a year or so younger than him ‘D. She just looked doing everything Murdoc didn’t do when it comes to taking care of himself. She was definitely not his usual jail-bait he screws. She had alot more life experience than the others ever did.

  
2D: Yeah, he likes them as dumb as me...Wait…

_Back to the story....Well as you can guess after a time of conversing things led to the obvious conclusion and..._

2D: In the park and with children around? They must be scarred for life.

  
N: It was night Stu, no one was there.

_Sooo after a few more nighttime meetings in the park with this woman, it was time for him to head back for Kong. He came to a conclusion that he was still having too much fun with her and got the brilliant idea (in his own mind) to bring her back to the Studio without even asking her if she wanted to._

R: What a gentleman wouldn’t you say so guys?

  
2D: A regular white knight in shining armor rescuing her like that.

  
R: That was a big dumb ass mistake.

  
N: His Nagasaki and Hiroshima.

_Hmmm, Hmm. When he pulled her into the lobby of Kong something strange happened. She became a three-dimensional cartoon herself. Dazed and angry by the abduction, her eyes became catlike and feral as they used to long ago in her past. You see there was a secret she had kept to herself, while she became a weak shade of herself._

2D: Ooh a secret!

  
N: Stu, you know what it is.

  
2D: Oh yeah, right.

_She was a witch._

  
R: A Witch and a Satanist? Who would have guessed? (Sarcastically)

_Since her childhood, Jeena lived a fairly normal life except she was prone to hear and see things that others couldn’t..._

2D: I see dead people. (Giggling)

_Really now, are these interruptions going to happen all the way through this?_

R: Yes.

_Well at least try to keep it to a minimum please. She had kept to herself quite a bit lost in her own world with what her parents thought were imaginary friends, and as she grew older she naturally became attracted to magic and the occult. When she reached seventeen, a voice, she had never heard before started talking to her. It whispered of a future of great importance for her and all she had to do was study and practice magic to make it happen. Soon thereafter, she left home and found herself in a commune that was actually a coven of witches._

2D: A commune you say? With those wild hippie clothes, kumbaya singing and free love? Groovy.

_You really are getting irritating. The voice fell silent till ten years later it came back telling her it was time to move on. Jeena fought its insistence to leave, but finally gave in to voice‘s demands. With the always persistent voice pushing her on, by her thirtieth year she found herself married, pregnant and trapped. The voice once again went silent and that’s when her decline began._

R: I think your going a little too far on his tangent mister. ‘D’s starting to fall asleep

  
2D: Huh? What’d I miss?

_Oh, all right. Where were we?_

N: Muds brought her back without her consent. Kind of like you, huh Russel?

  
R: Yeah. But at least I got something out of it.

_Well readers, when Jeena crossed that threshold of Kong and entered into the Gorillaz reality, not only did she change, but her magic that had been fading in the real world, came back again, stronger than she ever experienced before._

R: Yeah, she got hysterical when she changed over. Her eyes turned into those cats’ eyes and seemed on fire as she yelled “MURDOC!” Get this. She hit him so hard, he went flying down the hall. Ha! I thought he was going to shit in his pants.

  
N: Lucky for him she passed out, because I think she wouldn’t have stopped until she did some permanent damage.

2D: Served him right though when you think about it.

  
N: Sublime Justice.

  
R: Fool. Thinks he can go around and do whatever boneheaded thing he wants and no one will do anything about it. Mixing it up with someone smarter than him was a brilliant stroke of idiocy on his part. She wasn’t going to go down easy like the others he had messed around with.

_It seemed readers that with bringing Jeena back, something in her had reawakened giving her a reason to fight again. Too bad for Murdoc, he made himself the target._

N: It was the beginning of the end and we had front row tickets. We should have gotten more popcorn guys.

_Who’s telling the story here?_

R: You are.

  
2D: We are just adding some colorful commentary to it. Remember?

  
N: You still are really dry.

_Thanks. Russel asked Murdoc if he would like to explain what had just happened, Murdoc said, “Bite me.” and left sulking, leaving Jeena behind with the others. When she got a good look at her new self, they all thought she was going to lose it again. She had unwillingly gone down a rabbit hole courtesy of Murdoc._

N: That’s our Muds. Give, give, give. Never take.

  
R: You have to admit that this is a pretty cranked out space and I guess going from 3-D to 2-D didn’t help either. It can deflate you. Get it guys? Three to two? Deflate? Ha, ha, ha, ha.

_How original of you._

N: Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

  
2D: (whispering) Lions and Tigers and Bears...oh my. (Sniggering)

_Well it wasn’t until Jeena found out all the things she could do that she began to warm up to her new surroundings. It seemed all the years she studied and practiced was finally working for real right in front of her._

N: She got really good at making illusions, so she and I had fun playing tricks on Stu.

  
2D: Bloody snakes crawling all over my room! I couldn’t sleep for a few weeks without thinking I would wake up staring at one in my face. What about when she turned my noodles into worms? I took a bite of it before I knew. What did I ever do to you guys anyway?

  
R: Ah they were just mess’n with ya. You’re too damn easy.

  
N: Besides it wasn’t real.

  
2D: Bleed’n real enough for me.

_Let’s move on shall we? Over a period of time as Jeena stayed on, she became happier. “It’s like a vacation.” She told the guys and becoming more comfortable with what she could do, she offered to do a little ‘cleaning’ around the Studio for a space in a wall._

2D: How in the Hell did she do that? It was a whole bloom’n room right behind some crazy symbol she put on the wall in the corridor to the car park.

  
R: Don’t understand why she couldn’t have taken one of the other empty rooms we had.

  
N: I asked her once and all she did was smile and said she had her reasons.

_Anyway, as she became friends with Noodle, 2D, and Russel, she went around mumbling to herself while putting her type of graffiti of strange symbols that glowed all over the walls of the studio. She also put in a few extra-surprises._

R: Oh yeah! That invisible transport door!

  
N: Ooooh. I liked walking in the car park corridor only to find yourself in another part of the Studio the next. With that one you never knew when and where you were going to go.

  
R I liked it when it would land me in the kitchen. Have I said yet that she made a mean pot roast? Oh, and her Lasagna was to die for... and her enchiladas.... I’m hungry. I’ll be right back.

_When it came to Murdoc? Well my friends that is another story. Good old Muds seemed to think Jeena owed him for this new found freedom he had graciously given her and expected payment, over a period of time. At first she did, but over that period of time’she became too ‘busy’ for him._

2D: I never saw him become more frustrated, confused, and desperate in my life. He acted like his new favorite toy was taken away and threw fits every time she would just walk away. At least he did leave me alone back then. Come to think of it, I didn’t have any headaches for a while...

  
R: Yeah. He seemed more determined to get her in his grasp when she did it. Problem was, as I said before, Jeena was smarter than him. She would let him get this close and then BAHM! Denied! You thought he was going to give himself an aneurysm.

  
N: How did she keep stringing him along like that? You thought he would have given up after the first few tries.

  
2D: You ever see the way he looked at her when she was teasing him like that? I think he bloody well got off on it.

_Your right 2D, he is a bit of a masochist and she knew it._

R: She also seemed to obtain this uncanny ability to put him in his place and he had no idea what to do then.

  
N: (nods) Karma finally caught up to him and in the form of Jeena. I guess you could say she was his Achilles heel?

_You know guys that he has a lot of those kind of heels lying around._

R: Yeah, he trips on them all day long. No wonder he walks all funny.

_You of course know that he had no idea about this. He just saw what he wanted and was going to get it because he deserved it, regardless of why. He wasn’t very successful was he guys?_

N: Oh! How about the time she put an ass’s tail on him?

  
R: Down right freaking hilarious. I bet they could hear him half across the world yelling obscenities. Too bad it was all an illusion.

  
N: Not to him. (Snicker)

  
2D: You can’t forget about the time she told him that compared to the bass player of Primus, his playing was as creative as Mike blowing a horn out of his arse.

  
R: Yeah man, he went from that green he’s been sport’n to purple. I had to walk away before I busted a gut.

  
2D: How does he get that shade of green?

  
N: Sits in a bath with Green dye #39. Found the bottle one day when he left it in the toilets. Seems as he’s getting older, he’s losing his color. Kind of like Michael Jackson, so he’s been ‘enhancing’ his appearance.

  
2D: 39,39,39,39,39...........

  
R: That’s ‘69' fool. You know, he should consider highlights.

  
N: It even said on the bottle. ‘May cause brain damage due too over exposure’. Smelled really funky too.

  
2D: ...39,39,39,39,39...

  
R: Now you’re getting annoying to me. Why don’t you go…

_Guys we were talking about how Jeena drove him crazy because he was being, well Murdoc?_

N: How about the time he thought he would be nasty and lick all her food and utensils in front of her before she ate? He gave her his best nasty smile and told her he was doing something productive with it. Whatever that meant.

  
R: Yeah, right. So later on, she changed his tongue back to normal. He was banging on a symbol in the corridor for over an hour yelling about how much the plastic surgery had cost.

  
2D: Rather tongues for him than worms for me.

  
N: She really didn’t change it though; it was just another illusion.

  
R: Ha, ha, ha! Don’t forget about the best part though guys. Turned out he was banging on the wrong symbol the whole time! Hers was down the hall on the other side. The look he had on his face when she came out and told him to shut up, because she was trying to sleep? That was It! She got better every day. Ahhh, those sweet memories.

  
N: Next she took his Grimoire and told me that the strongest spell she could find in there was how to make play-dough.

  
2D: He had a recipe for play-dough? I love that stuff...well until it dries out and gets all crumbly.

  
N: Funny, we were waiting for him explode but for some reason he never said a word about it.

  
R: When you come to think of it, they were acting more like kids than grownups the way they went at each other. Always yelling at each other about who wasn’t playing fair. I mean really...

  
N: Ooh, ooh! I know the best and worst of them all! How about when for some reason he suddenly decided that he was going to give up and move on with his usual group of groupies.

  
2D: Oh yeah that was when he tried to accuse her of putting a spell on him making him impo... tenotent...imptyo...tento....oh hell, his wanker broke. Hee, hee, hee wanker...hee, hee, hee... (dissolves into giggles)

_Oh, this doesn’t sound like its going to have a good outcome._

N: It was not a pretty scene. He refused to believe that she takes that kind of spell casting seriously even when she swore she would never purposely alter someone like that.

  
R: She was so furious that she told him she had no interest interfering with his, how did she put it that time? Oh yeah, a lifestyle choice of ‘rutting like a bitch in heat’. Then he made his biggest mistake.

  
2D: Right. He pretty much screamed into her face to fix it... and when she said no, he called her a bitch.

  
R: WRONG!

  
N: Well you know what she did? She suddenly got all calm and sweet and just when he thought he was going to get his way, she flashed that freaky cat look. Then she kneed him hard, told him he was fixed and literally threw him out of the room landing on the other side of the corridor.

  
R: DENIED! GAME OVER MAN!

  
N: I can still hear her screaming, “ I HATE you, you whoring-asshole!”

  
2D: Can you call a guy a ‘whore’?

  
R: I think in Mud’s case we can make an exception. Anyway, he passed out. I tried to feel sorry for him but well, when does he deserve any pity? He does and says dumb ass things and then gets slammed. His fault, end of story.

  
N: It won me one hundred pounds! You are really bad at betting Stu.

  
2D: Don’t remind me, I’m broke! We dragged him as far as the car park, pants down and all. Maybe we should have pulled them up Russel?

  
R: There is not enough money in this world.

  
2D: Yeah, you're right. Did I mention that I was broke?

  
R: After this little Armageddon, they holed themselves up in their prospective places and it was really quiet the whole week after that. After almost three months of them ‘playing’ tug-of-war and of all the things that happen around here that can give you the willies, this was the worst to date.

_MY TURN! You see readers, the longer Jeena had stayed there, the more she became, well Jena, her true self. She was no longer being the dark-eyed, sallow, despondent woman Murdoc took advantage of. As her powers grew, the more alive and stronger she became. Her will to live came back as well as her feisty attitude. Even her appearance changed; her frumpy figure becoming full and curvy._

R: Bodacious.

_Please.... her long hair no longer dull and dark became auburn seeming to have a life all it’s own. Her dark hallowed eyes filled out and went from a mud color to a glow of amber._

2D: I swear sometimes I would see her with a glow about, especially when she was doing those.... things she did; or when she seemed to be having conversations with someone when there was nobody around. Bloody unnerving sometimes.

  
N: I wasn’t all that unnerving Stu. She was just talking to all the others that live here. She would laugh telling me it was like living in a huge mental asylum for the dead.

  
R: She did keep to herself a bit and would sit outside of the Studio sometimes for hours, but she liked it here and us. And did I tell you she made really good chili? I think it’s time for seconds.

_The tables had turned. Murdoc had no idea what to make of it now and all he wanted were things to go back to the way they were supposed to be... him being in control. But unlike us, who all know sometimes just because you want something to happen, it doesn’t mean it will turn out the way you want it to. So, he continued to ignore that fact._  
  
N: That’s our Muds...

  
2D: A bloom’n idiot to the end. (Did I just say that?)

  
N: Don’t worry Stu, he’s not around, remember?

  
R: Yeah, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was fun to watch him squirm we would have thrown him out of the band long ago.

_You don’t mean that._

R: Yeah, I know, but it’s a fun thought. When it came down to it though, he gave as good as he got. We had a pool going for a while but gave up because they always seemed about dead even messing with each other. The only difference was Jeena just kept her cool better than he did. Well, except when he went around altering her ‘artwork’.

  
2D: He still deserved to be put in his place because he had it coming to him. Remember what he did with my old girlfriends? About time this all happened.

  
R: You’re never going to let that go are you?

  
2D: No. Not as long as I can remember… Wait! What were we talking about?

  
_Sigh... And so, our readers even good ‘vacations’ have to come to end._

N: She did miss the kids. She talked a lot about them and I think they were the only part of her life that she missed.

  
R: Still, you couldn’t help seeing like she was going to her execution. She really shouldn’t have gone back.

_Don’t give away the story. I haven’t gotten that far yet._  
  
_On the day before she left, she went to Murdoc to give him what he had been waiting for._

N: She never told us that.

_She had her reasons that I can’t talk about. Even some she wasn’t completely even aware of. On her last night at Kong she conjured a spell using their blood transporting them to a graveyard and performed a ritual using sex-magic under the eyes of the dead._

R: WHOA!!! WAY to much information there!

  
N: LA, LA, LA, LA, LA...(holding fingers in ears)

  
2D: That explains that self-satisfied smug look he had on his face the next day. He was so happy, he even smiled at me saying good morning. So I went back to my room and hid under the covers waiting for the world to end.

  
N: Russel, wasn’t that the night of that big earthquake? Remember it put a big crack on the side of the building?

  
R: Yeah, you’re right. I was like the hill had woken up and shrugged. Even all those shades that live here were howling and carrying on. If I had hair, it would have stood up on end on that one.

_O.K. Guys we are getting to the part where you need to know what went on so you understand what happens next and why._

N: We already know.

_Yes, but the readers don’t. Next day she passed out items she couldn’t take back with her._

2-D :...And here are your lovely parting gifts.

_She left Russel a lot of frozen T.V. dinners of his favorite foods she made._

R: I went through them nice and slow so I didn’t run out too soon.... You know dessert sounds good right now...”

_She gave 2D a golden Buddha statue that chanted._

2D: Free Tibet.

_Noodle got a sphere that fit into the palm of her hand._

N: It was her ‘Holo Ball’. It was how she would change her room into any kind of place she wanted. She said it was my turn to have fun with it.  
  
_Finally, she left Murdoc three things._

2D: What? Three things? All I saw was one and that was that string of beads he wore around his neck.

  
R: Freaky thing. It seemed to glow black.

  
2D: Can black glow?

_How am I supposed to tell you what else he got if you guys won’t just shut up?_

2D: Sorry. It’s just not fair he got more because we were a lot nicer to her.

_I’m going to ignore your whining. The second was the scar on his left palm from the blood sacrifice._

N: So that’s where he got it! When I asked him about it he got this weird look on his face and called it a ‘souvenir’.”

  
R: Still way too much information.

  
2D: Did anyone else notice she had a matching one on her left palm?

_For crying out loud quit interrupting! Can we just push through this prologue?_

R: You know if you were just a little bit more interesting, we wouldn’t have to fill in. Who made you narrator anyway?

_The powers that be_.

R: The one for our book “Rise of The Ogre” knew how to sell it better.

_I’m here to tell the story not sell it._

R: What’s the difference?

_(Long pause) Do you guys want to finish the story?_

N: No. Please, you go right ahead.

_Finally, the last one was by mistake. Well, maybe not, I won’t tell. Whatever is was though it was a big one. Really it's the reason why the next part of the story can be told._  
_Wait a second. Just to make sure, I did say it was all Murdoc’s fault from the beginning. Right?_

R, N. & 2D: Yes.

_Yeah, let’s keep it that way. During the night’s ritual, they unknowingly got a piece of each other’s soul. Deep inside his withered black one a tiny sun now burned bright. But don’t worry readers he had no clue it was there. He is Murdoc after all._

2D: You had me worried there for minute.

  
N: Since when does he have a clue on anything?

  
R: Yeah, even if it hit him like a dead fish in the face, he wouldn’t even know.

_In Jeena’s turn she unknowingly got a black hole from his which fed on her life force and unlike her piece, his would come to no good._  
  
R: Wait a minute! Did I miss something or did you say Murdoc actually has a soul?

  
2D: Of course Russ. He’s got a lot of them on the bottom of all his shoes . . . Why are you looking at me like that?

_Everyone is born with one, even him. Yes, he ‘sold it’ to Satan, but the Master doesn’t collect till you’re dead of course. He wants it as black as possible before he gets it._

N: Well since Muds never seems to bathe very often, he was a shoe in to begin with.  
2D: Exactly my point Noodle.

_(Groan) Continuing . . . Even though the band missed not having Jeena around, things went back to normal . . . Well normal for them._

N: Actually it was pretty boring. We had way too much fun watching Murdoc go nuclear and I got rich off Stu because of it.

  
2D: I still say you cheated.

  
N: Wanna bet?…Thought not.

_Then one night, a few months later, Murdoc had a dream. He found himself in Jeena’s house and passed by the rooms where her family was asleep. They had no idea what they would find in the bathroom the next morning, but Murdoc did._  
  
N: This is the part of the story I don’t like.  
  
_He found her in the bathtub, back as when she originally met him and blood tainted the water and covered her face. Bottles of both Tequila and pills lay in a pool of blood on the floor next to one of her hands where she had slit her wrists._

  
R: Hey! Did that ‘Black hole’ that was a piece of Murdoc’s soul do this to her?

  
_Partially. It did contribute to her fate by eating away at her strength, but I will leave the real reason for the main story. Besides as you guys know there was more to this than meets the eye._

2D: Right! It had to with this cosmic...OOOWWWW!  
R: Shut up a fool!

_Thanks Russel. Let’s not give the second part of the story away shall we?_

**“Murdoc?”**  
**“I’m here Jeena luv.”**

2D: He said that?!?

N: It was a rare moment for our Muds actually having a Freudian slip.

  
R: Personally? It’s another thing I’d rather forget.

**“Murdoc, you were right.”** _she said, then slipped under the water and died. It seems the night before she left you guys, he told her going back it would be the end of her._  
  
N: How prophetic.

_It was, wasn’t it? I guess we will have to give credit where it’s due._

R: Amazingly observant. Must have burned half his brain cells away to come up with that.

  
2D: What are the odds it will ever happen again? I mean really?

  
R: It’s not even worth betting on, even for you.

_For once in a long time Murdoc was right and he didn’t have the heart to gloat about it. For all the sick, twisted things he had said and done over his life he never had regretted but only a few and this was one of them. In the end he is human after all and we all do things we regret. He just chooses to ignore 98.999% of them._  
_Now readers, if we have no more interruptions, the end of this prologue is in sight._  
_The dream plagued him for days getting worse every time. What he didn’t know was that now she was dead, the little sun in him was beginning to fade away and his soul had gotten quite attached to it. So through these nightmares, his soul put a little suggestion in his head that something had to be done before went away for good. Finally, he got the message and he decided that he had to do something._  
_He had to bring her back._  
_He knew where Jeena was._  
_She was in Hell._

R: And that’s where it all began to go downhill.

  
2D: (whining) Hey! How come Murdoc got to play “hero?”

_Murdoc had the most to learn. Consider yourselves one up on the evolutionary scale. Yes, even you 2D_

2D: Well, at least someone cares.

_Moreover, all of you were heroes in your stories._

R: Wait a second! Murdoc didn’t learn a damn thing down there!

  
2D: Yeah! He’s just as much of an arse as he was before!

_Oh, he did. He just will never admit it, even to himself. Remember the 98.999%? It applies here also. He wouldn’t be our Muds if he did. But please, let’s not give the story away yet. Suspense and all._

N: I love a good story!

_So after convincing the band, they set out to get Jeena back and this is where the second part of the story begins._  
_What they didn’t know was that each had a destiny, and part of it was waiting for them in Hell._  
_Now you know the history._  
  
R: With a lot of help from us.

_I really appreciated it. (Sarcastically)_  
_So let’s begin the story how the Gorillaz fared in Hell._  
_This is the story of how Noodle found her army. Russel found old friends and an unusual cause._  
_With Murdoc? Well he faced the Master himself to get Jeena back._

2D: Wait! What about me?

_You? You were just along for the ride._

2D: What! What do you mean I was just along for the ride? I bloody well had an adventure too!

_I know I just was messing with you._

2D: Next time I want a different narrator.

  
R: Is it dinnertime yet?

  
N: Has anyone seen Mike?

_Where did I lose control in this prologue?_


	2. THE FINAL WAKE UP CALL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a dream gone bad, Murdoc makes up his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that you got through the prolougue the real story begins.

PART II

IT’S ALL MURDOCS FAULT  
“Dreams aren’t so bad…but what are we going to do”  
Every Planet We Reach Is Dead- Demon Days

THE FINAL WAKE UP CALL

In the darkness Murdoc could hear the now familiar dripping noises of the water. He kept his eyes shut refusing to open them. But like the times before, it only got louder, insisting on being heard. So he continued to ignore it, reminding himself this was only a bad dream. It would end soon enough. At least they had so far.

  
Timid knocking on a door directly behind him made him start. “Mommy?” A little girl’s voice called from the other side.

  
_Bugger! This part has never happened before,_ he thought to himself. Maybe he would just sneak a peek.

  
“Mommy? Are you in here?” The girl’s voice was a little louder but there was no mistaking the sound of worry in it.

  
Never mind. He was just going to keep his eyes closed this time. He already knew what he was going to see if he opened them, even with this new twist.

  
_Why can’t she just leave me alone?_

  
He heard the door knob turn and the slight squeak of the hinges as it was opened. “Mommy, are you O.K.?” He felt an uncomfortable twinge of being off balance as the body belonging to the voice passed through him. A silence drew itself out long enough to make him believe that the dream might be over.

  
“Daddy!” the child’s voice yelled, trembling with fear. “Mommy! It’s Mommy!”

 

  
He felt the presence of someone else come up behind him and an older boy’s voice spoke. “What’s going on sis?”

  
Just keep your eyes shut Murdoc, and this will all be over soon, he told himself, trying harder to fight the urge to peek. Looking would satisfy his curiosity, but then it would also make him acknowledge that this was happening in the first place. When given the opportunity, denial is always the better way to go.

  
“MOMMY!” the boy screamed. Murdoc was once again experienced the twinge of disorientation as the boy ran through him and then there was frantic splashing. “No Mommy! No! Wake up! Please! Wake up!”  
The children started crying hysterically as Murdoc felt yet another presence come up behind him. This one though, felt much larger and loomed over him. Suddenly keeping his eyes closed became easier.

  
“What’s going on in here?” an irritated voice grumbled from the figure behind Murdoc. “Don’t you two know not to…Oh my God! No Jeena! NO!”

  
The man passed though him, but this time instead of feeling disoriented, Murdoc’s head spun viciously like the time he had come off from one particularly bad trip and he felt like retching. There was more splashing and the man let out a loud, guttural moan that sent the children into high pitched wailing.

  
He couldn’t help himself as curiosity finally won out and he opened his eyes to what reminded him of a scene out of one of 2D’s horror movies.

  
Blood. There was lots of blood. Everywhere.

  
Even with the number of times he had this dream, he was still pretty impressed on how much blood she had in her. It was all over the bathtub, on the floor, the wall and had spread further out now with the family in there.

  
Jeena had made sure that the bath water had been warm when she slit her veins open, allowing for maximum blood flow. Remembering of seeing the number of cuts she had given herself in the previous dreams he had, it was obvious she was in a big hurry to get it over with and move on to wherever she really wanted to be. From the empty bottle of pills and Tequila bottle lying in the pool of blood on the floor she also wanted to make sure there was no way of coming back.

  
The kids were on the floor pressed in between the toilet and bathtub, wailing as they held onto each other. Besides being soaked in the bloody water from the tub where their mother was in, there was even more of her blood smeared on them from their feet up where they had slipped in it on the floor.

  
So these are her kids, he thought, looking them over. They look like her. Would be cute too if it wasn’t for this little blood bath. He tried desperately to ignore the nagging sense of sympathy for them, losing their mom. Buried feelings of regret, hate with even a little fear he had experienced since his father had died, bubbled to the surface of his thoughts. Satan rot his damned soul.

  
The husband was holding up the top half of her body out of the water as he cried, yet somehow he did not seem very sincere. Jeena had rarely mentioned him and when she had, it was with the underlying tone of resentment. Seeing this large man carrying on a little over dramatically, Murdoc instantly didn’t like him. He looked as stiff-necked and unaccustomed to emotions as Jeena was free-spirited and expressive. No wonder she was so damn depressed living here with someone like that for so long. What had she been thinking in the first place?

  
He couldn’t deal with the scene anymore, so closed his eyes again hoping he could now wake up.

  
“YOU!”

  
Murdoc’s eyes flew back open to see the bullish husband staring directly at him. The round face was almost as red as the blood around him and gone was any trace of loss and despair in the man’s eyes of losing a loved one. Under a heavy brow, hooded eyes gleamed with a dangerous look only a cockled man can get.

  
Does he see me? he thought incredulously. How could that be? Suddenly the scene snapped into clarity. He could feel the lingering heat from the bath, smell the iron tanginess that permeated the air and the slickness of Jeena’s blood under his boots. The unpleasant reality of no longer being just an observer in this little drama hit Murdoc making him feel weak in the legs. He turned around, hoping that just maybe he was wrong and there was anyone else coming into the room, but no one else was there. There was no way out of this.

  
_Bugger!_

  
“It’s you!” Jeena’s husband seethed, pointing his finger in Murdoc’s direction and Murdoc looked back at him in shock.

  
“Are you talking to me?” he asked, sounding to his dismay, a little nervous.

  
“I want my mommy!” wailed the little girl, pulling hard at her dad’s shirt, but the big man shoved her back into the space between the tub and toilet which only made her wail even more.  
“Shut up Jessika!” The man yelled at the girl but never took his eyes off Murdoc. She did just that, turning into her brother’s arms and whimpered softly. A flash of anger took away any trace of nervousness Murdoc had up to this point. As much as he disliked little snot nosed kids, seeing them bullied by fear brought on by their parents got him every time.

  
“Eh there! From the looks of it, your little girl just lost her mum! Don’t you think you should be….”

  
His next words died on his lips as the husband dropped Jeena like a sack of potatoes back into the tub, her body making a solid thud and splash back into the tub. The man cleared the distance between them yelling, “You’re the asshole that’s responsible for this!”

  
Close up, he was at least three inches taller and looked like he could give Russel a good run on size. Murdoc had a bad feeling this was going to be one of those times he was about to get a good beating so he tried to think fast.

  
“Easy there mate,” he said trying to sound relaxed as he backed up only to hit a wall. “I wasn’t even here when she did this.” From the look on the enraged husbands face, that reasoning wasn’t going over so well. His hopes of getting out of this in one piece were looking slimmer.

  
The husband poked his finger hard into Murdoc’s chest, “You took her!”

  
“Mommy please, come back!” It was the boy this time keening at an impossibly high note.

  
“You changed her! You made her different!” He poked him hard again, making Murdoc wince. That one was going to leave a bruise.

  
“Oi! She was already different!” Murdoc shot back, getting fed up. No one pushes him around, even in his dreams. “If you only opened your bloody eyes about it, you arse, she wouldn’t have come looking for someone better!” He pulled himself up proudly, “Someone like yours truly.”

  
The next thing he knew he was swallowing the bathtub water as the husband held him under and the children began to scream hysterically. Somewhere in the back of his mind as he tried to free himself from the unbelievably strong grasp of the man, a part of him annoyingly had to observe that as tasty as Jeena had been, her blood wasn’t. His throat and nose burned as he began to see black spots. The children’s screaming went back to whimpering as he was pulled back up gasping for air.

  
“She came back different! She came back changed!” the man yelled into Murdoc’s face, spit flying from his mouth and hitting Murdoc squarely in the eye.

  
“She got more depressed every day you asshole! Even the drugs didn’t work and I couldn’t do anything! She couldn’t do anything and she became useless to me!" He then forced Murdoc to look at Jeena’s limp body in the tub, "Now look at her!"

  
He couldn't help but look. There she was, her naked body back to its original state; no longer a cartoon like he was. He had never actually believed Jeena when she had told him she had found a way to change back to this. Why would she when they both knew it wasn’t what she wanted to do in the first place? Besides being a cartoon had so many more advantages. Yet, here she was, already looking swollen and was a shade of bluish grey. Her face just below the surface, with eyes staring openly into nothing and no longer a brilliant gold like they had been before she had left; just a dull muddy brown. Her long hair was spread out around her head in clumps like a halo of snakes in the cloudy red water.

  
What a waste! He thought angrily, looking at her now lifeless body. I told her not to go back. Told her this would happen. But did she listen? Nooooo, she just had to because of…

  
Then he saw something he hadn’t noticed any time before, cutting off his internal tirade. Not only did he see the multiple cuts on her left wrist but also the scar on her left palm that mirrored the one on his. An uncomfortable sucking pain hit him squarely in his chest and he turned his face away. This was not, nor ever will be the time to get all sentimental. She made her choice and this was the outcome.  
Her fault, he explained it away to himself, no one else’s.

  
“I have no idea what you are talking about mate.” He growled angrily trying hard to push back the overwhelming feeling of loss threatening to take control. “She doesn’t look any different to me. Don’t go blaming me that the desire to get away from you made her do something this extreme.”

  
"WRONG!” he was jerked around to face the furious husband again. “IT’S YOUR FAULT!” The man bellowed followed by the children wailing again and Murdoc found himself under water again, fighting to make the man loosen his grip while trying not to drink more water. He stayed under until he could feel himself blacking out and next he was up, gasping for breath and more than done with the nightmare he was in.  
“What the bloody hell you want me to do about it?” he finally gasped out, barely able to talk.

  
“BRING HER BACK!” The husband screamed in his face and then picked Murdoc up, throwing him against the bathtub wall. Hitting the wall painfully hard, he fell into the water only to come face to face with Jeena. Looking into her eyes, he saw they were no longer muddy brown but those bright gold cats’ eyes. Her arms encircled him, pressing his body tightly against hers. He couldn’t help but scream as he thrashed trying to get loose from her, but she only pressed him tighter and whispered mournfully into his ear.

  
“Murdoc, you were right.” Then they both began sinking deeper into the bloody water; going down as if no longer in a bath but a large body of water and everything went dark. The nightmare was over.

*************************

Murdoc sat up in a cold sweat shaking and picking up the nearest thing to him, he threw it down the hallway of his Winnebago.

“BUGGER!” he yelled, furious he had just endured another of those nightmares.

  
**_~They’re getting worse aren’t they? ~_ ** The Voice inside his head asked. ** _~ This is the third one this week.~_ **

  
Murdoc groaned realizing that he had escaped one nightmare only to go to another. The Voice that had taken up residence in his head just a little while after Jeena had left and refused to ever shut up with its so-called ‘good advice’. The damn thing thought it was a regular Jiminy the Cricket, whose sole purpose was to guide Murdoc by making obvious observations and sarcastic remarks . Murdoc had tried repeatedly to tell it that he had done just fine without him till now and to finally “Bugger off”. To his disgust though, that only made it more persistent. So he had tried to get rid of it through severe intoxication, loud music and even repeatedly hitting his head against the wall, but nothing worked. He had gone so far as to seriously consider blowing his head off. The only downside with that was the outcome would be his death and he wasn’t about to give up living yet.

  
“Shut up! My head hurts and you’re not making it any better,” he answered out loud.

  
“Is there something wrong?” a female voice asked sleepily next to him and he cringed.

  
_Damn, I forgot she’s here._

  
Murdoc looked down at the young woman next to him, trying to remember where she came from then decided it hardly mattered. She was just another star-struck groupie that on first sight, look delightful with the heavy black make-up, covered in tattoos and piercings. After a few rounds though, like all the others before her, she had lost her luster. This was when another binge of heavy drinking was called for and she would look just fine again. Problem was, having been graced with another replay of Jeena’s ‘Greek Tragedy’, all he wanted to do was consume massive amounts of booze alone.  
He grabbed for the now ever present bottle of alcohol.

  
“None of your business.” he snarled and drank it down in three swallows and reaching for his cigarettes realized that was what he had thrown. Grumbling, Murdoc got up to walk down the wagon to retrieve them while scratching himself and letting out a good belch.

  
“You’re upset I can tell. I have a sixth sense about things like that,” she called after him trying to sound sympathetic. “I’m also a good listener.”

  
He found his cigarettes and pulled one out. “I’m not in the mood.” he remarked indifferently, as he lit up the cigarette.

  
The woman looked at him stunned, furrowing her brow confused. “Not in the mood? C’mon baby, you said you're always in the mood,” she pouted in a sweet syrupy voice that only made him want her to go away even faster. Unfortunately, she took his silence as a good sign and as dropped the covers from her body and arched her body suggestively toward him for a better view. “I know just how I can bring it back.”  
“Not now.” He took a long drag and was grateful to feel the alcohol and nicotine taking effect. Now all he had to do was get rid of the tart. “I want you to leave, now.”

  
“Leave?” She looked at him, stunned for the second time as if it was too short of time for her to process everything he had just said. She stared blankly at him till he looked in her direction.

  
“Is there a problem with your hearing? Get out!” he snarled as began to look for another bottle up in the kitchen area.

  
"But we’re nowhere near my flat!” she protested finding her wits again and came up to the front looking completely at a loss as to what and why he was doing this.  
“Not my problem. Leave now and don’t come back.” He finally found another bottle and took a long swallow from it.

  
_I need to get wasted._

  
**~No, you don’t! You’re more of an ass that way.~**

  
_Good!_

  
A familiar pathetic look that all these groupies got when he told them he was finally done with them, showed in all its glory across her face. She really looked quite ugly as he observed her black make-up had run down her face. No amount of drinking would have helped anyways even if he had wanted to screw her.

  
“But, but you said you loved me!” she whined piteously. Annoying as that always sounded, coming from her, it reached a new level of irritation. It made twisting the knife all the more enjoyable though.  
“I did, didn’t I?” he answered, letting the remark hang between them and as a glimmer of hope came into his eyes, he gave her a nasty grin. “I lied.”

  
She looked at him as if he had actually slapped her.

  
“You… you’re an arse!” she yelled at him, now furious.

  
Downing the rest of this bottle, he went over to where her clothes had been shed earlier in the night and threw them at her. She glared at him while she dressed and he ignored her till she was done then threw something in his direction to get his attention.

  
“Oh, you're finally finished? Good." He smiled nastily at her. "Don’t worry deary, you were a tasty little bite for my seemingly voracious appetite, but I’ve decided what I need right now is just a little more variety if you get what I mean.” Seeing the hurt expression on her face and knowing that he could so easily manipulate girls like her, it always made him feel a bit better. It was all about being the one in control and right now that was exactly where he wanted to be.

  
“I don’t even have any money for a bus.” Murdoc’s smile got nastier as he threw some change over to her.

  
“Here you go. Keep the rest and consider it for services rendered.” She let out an angry shriek and returned the throw with something she had picked up off the floor. This was starting to get to be a bit fun.

“Now, now, we don’t need to get into a little row about this. Let’s be civil. Tell you what, we can always be friends.”

  
The girl shot him a hateful glare. “I hope you rot in Hell!” and with the door of the Winnebago slamming, she was gone.

  
He stood there for a while with the cigarette burning down, empty bottle in his hand. Cortez, his large raven, who had been quietly perched on the driver's seat up till then, flew over to land on his shoulder squawking loudly in his ear as his talons painfully dug into Murdoc’s skin.

  
“God damn bird!” he yelled at Cortez, prying him off and tossing him toward the back. “Fucking go somewhere else!” He looked at where the talons had drawn blood and frowned.

  
_Ruined me perfectly good skin._

  
**_~What, the one that is tough as leather and looks like you’ve been buried for a few days? Smells like it too.~_ **

  
_Bite me_ , Then he farted. _Damn! It does smell like something crawled up my bum and died._

  
**_~I keep on telling you, you really need to change your eating habits. Problem is you have yet to listen to anything I have to say.~_ **

  
Ignoring the Voice, he looked up at the ceiling to the sea of pine fresheners hanging from it. He couldn’t help but think Jeena had been right. He should have changed the pine forest a long time ago. He’ll need to make a run for them at the local discount store. Or better yet, just filch them.

  
**_~Maybe you should simply clean the place up instead.~_ **

  
For a moment, he thought the caught the scent of the patchouli that Jeena had worn. He always knew she was close by when he caught the alluring smell. Taking a deep breath, Murdoc tried to capture as much as he could, while reveling in a particularly hot memory of her.

  
Jeena.

  
Damn! he thought as he caught himself drifting off. Bad enough to have those dreams, but what made it even worse was realizing he found himself doing crazy things like wandering down the halls of Kong looking for something and realizing it was her, or catching the scent of her and getting lost in it. Bugger, it had already been a few months since she had gone on her merry way back to her demise and he was still doing stupid shit like this. In fact, doing it at all in the first place and now these worsening nightmares was just another way of carrying on the torture. She wasn’t done with him yet.

  
_Shit. How am I going to get out of this one?_

  
**_~You can’t. All I know, is you have to do something soon before you end up dead in one of the dreams. Because, you know what they say...~_ **

  
_No, enlighten me._

  
**_~You die in a dream; you die on the outside. Lights out. You go straight to Hell and don’t get to collect two hundred dollars.~_ **

  
A light (a very tiny one) went off in Murdoc’s brain and as he went to the front, a plan began to formulate in his head. Starting the engine to set out for Kong, he groaned inwardly about how it was going to be a long drive back. The sooner he could get this started, the better.

  
**_~Your fault you know. You keep on burning your bridges when it comes to your...lifestyle. Pretty soon, you’re going to have to drive the Winnebago to the mainland to get anything at all.~_ **

  
_Glad to know you’re keeping a running total._

  
**_~My pleasure. These things need to be known so when the paternity lawsuits start rolling in...You know you really should put some underwear on.~_ **

  
_What the hell for?_ he asked the Voice as he lifted his butt off the seat. It always seemed to get sticky and uncomfortable after a few minutes, but now that the Voice had brought it to his attention, he wasn’t going to give it the satisfaction of doing at least that.

  
**_~For when the police arrest you for driving while intoxicated.~_ **

  
_You’re a freak’n comedian, aren’t you?_

  
No answer. He lit up another cigarette.

  
“Shit,” he said out loud

  
**_~What?~_ **

  
_I gotta take a piss._

 

**_~Do what you always do. Use an empty bottle.~_** The voice then laughed. _**~Just don’t forget which bottle is which like you did last time.~**_

  
_You love messing with me, don’t you?_

  
**_~I aim to please.~_** The Voice responded, sounding smug.

 


	3. Murdoc's Best Con Yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ~ The chapters name says it all. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FInally the band mates are together. :) Murdoc is gonna do his best to sell it. :)

MURDOC’S BEST CON YET

The afternoon found the remaining group of the Gorillaz, bowling in the corridor to the car park at Kong Studio. Even though they had a perfectly good bowling alley, it was something different to do in what seemed to be a string of dull days. They had lost a few balls to Jeena’s door, but that only meant they would have something else to do looking for them when they were tired of this.

  
For 2D, who had slowly been going broke betting with Noodle on each game, going to find for those lost balls was looking better by the minute.

  
“Strike! I win again!” shouted Noodle ecstatically as she began to dance around him, as if his long, skinny, blue haired frame was a maypole. Even after the seven years of living with the three men when she was shipped there in a box, ready to be part of the band, she had not grown much taller. Being Japanese meant the chances of her ever growing to reach 2D’s lumbering height, was next to improbable. Along with that and her short black hair, she still had a childish look at times, even though she was now seventeen.

  
“Bloody Hell! How does she do that?” 2D said in disbelief as he dug deeper into his pockets. “You must be cheating!”

  
“She ain’t cheat’n 'D. You just suck at this,” Russel chuckled, with his mouth full with chips as he held out his hand to take 2D’s money. Looking down at his bag of chips, he noticed it was almost empty. He'd need to get more, but if he left these two alone, 2D would soon be losing more than just money if Noodle could help it. He thought that she could go up against some of the toughest gambling guys he knew when he was back in the hood and win, but 2D wasn’t some thug. What she lacked in physical stature with him, she more than made up in mental prowess. Gambling with the simple-minded man was just like taking candy from a baby. From what Russel had learned over the years about 2D growing up, he had never been all there. Now after both of the accidents that rendered him eyeless years back, his mind was no more than that of a confused gerbil. Sometimes though, his real genius, that hid itself somewhere in his blue-haired head would come out, surprising everyone including himself.

  
This though, was definitely not one of those times and since Russel felt the need to make sure everyone played fair (especially when Murdoc was involved), he would just have to wait a little longer before feeding his large girth. After all, if someone didn't try to be the voice of reason in this nut house and band, God knows what kind of worse trouble they would find themselves in. The thought made him shudder.

  
“Let’s make the next one best two out of three?” Noodle was now looking at 2D expectantly, with a gleam in her eye. “I will even do you a favor. I win, you give me the rest of your money and do my laundry for a month. You win, you get all your money back along with mine.”

  
2D scrunched his brow, thrown by the addition of laundry to the bet. “Did you say something about clothes?” His head was starting to hurt trying to understand her proposal.

  
“C’mon man, where are your balls?” Russel goaded, amused by this turn in the betting. It seemed innocent enough. If Noodle was serious about 2D doing her laundry, then she deserved however they turned out. Who knows, maybe she was looking for a reason to get a whole new wardrobe. “You’re not going to back down to a little girl, are you?”

  
Noodle narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”

  
“You ain’t a woman yet either,” he shot back and turned to look questioningly at 2D again.

  
“I just don’t want to lose the rest of my money I have left.” 2D protested as he felt a throbbing behind his eye.

  
Not now, 2D told his headache. I just need to win all my money back and her clothes. Wait! What am I going to do with all her clothes?

  
“Chicken,” Russel taunted good-naturedly.

  
“I’m not!”

  
“Bawk, bawk, bawk, bawk.” Noodle joined in, flapping her arms while she circled him and it became too much for him.

  
“O.K., O.K. Two out of three,” he said, giving in as his whole head started to throb.

  
Clapping her hands in delight, Noodle turned and shouted down the hall. “Mike!”

  
Mike the monkey came out of the shadows at the end of the hall to reset the pins and then rolled the ball back down to the three.

  
2D grabbed the ball before Noodle could get it, “I go first!” and rolled the ball down the darkened hall toward the pins. To his relief, he heard the satisfying sound of the pins getting hit. So far this round was starting off better than the others.

  
“Down six, four standing!” Russel called out, making 2D glare at him.

  
“I can see that!”

  
Chuckling again, Russel spread his hands, “Sorry man. Just trying to add to the drama and all.” 2D grumbled to himself and rolled the returned ball to pull a spare. He turned to the other two with a smug smile spread over his face.

  
“Next!” Noodle, looking unaffected by 2D's lucky first round, stepped up to take her turn. After she rolled, she turned around to give 2D her best smile. “Strike!” Then there came the sound of the pins being hit and to 2D’s disgust after staring down the hall all the pins had indeed fallen over.

In the next round, 2D picked up a spare, while Noodle missed a split. Now it was down to the wire and he needed his pills really badly.

  
“I can do this,” 2D told himself out loud as he closed his eyes. “I can feel it. Be the ball.” He started to roll the ball…

  
“HELLO EVERYBODY!” Murdoc burst through the car park door and the ball went flying through the air completely missing the pins and made a huge dent in the side of the wall.

  
Noodle let out a loud shout and began to jump up and down ecstatically, “I WIN!”

  
“That’s not fair! He broke my concentration!” 2D protested loudly. “I want a do-over!”

  
Russel was trying his best to contain his laughter watching Noodle dance around. “Sorry man. Do-over’s aren’t in the rules.”

  
“Nobody told me there were rules!" 2D frowned to himself, confused again. "Or did they? Maybe I was in the toilets when they read them out or may....”

  
“I said hello mates!” Murdoc interrupted them again, trying hard to maintain his play face. Starting off with a bad attitude was going to blow it for him. “Didn’t anyone miss me?”

  
Russel and Noodle turned to him and said in unison, "NO!"

  
“What? Did I miss something?” 2D looked around, more confused.

  
“Well, a fine how-do-you-do, too,” Murdoc grumbled, looking and feeling offended. These three never made being nice easy. “Here I was driving all night thinking of you guys and how we’ve all been working hard at recording...”

  
“We’ve been waiting for you to contribute and help remix a few songs,” Russel interrupted.

  
“Don’t worry. I’ve got a few great ideas up in my head.” Murdoc said knocking on it.

  
_**~There’s nothing up here but me with some dirty pictures.~** _

  
“There’s nothing up there but cobwebs and dirty pictures,” Russel echoed.

  
_**~He’s a smart man there.~** _

  
Murdoc glared at the three of them. “This is the thanks I get for thinking about you sods?”

  
“About what?" Noodle asked.

  
“A holiday of course!” He gave them what he thought was his most winning smile.

  
“We ain’t going to listen to another word you say if you don’t stop smiling like that.” Russel said, looking a little ill, but to Murdoc's satisfaction, he saw Noodle look at him expectantly.

  
“A holiday? Where?” Just like cheese in a mouse trap, he knew he had picked the perfect idea to lure them in.

  
“Of course a holiday!" He said in his slickest voice. "At one of the best places in the...existence of all existences.”

  
“A park?” 2D guessed, looking excitedly at him and Murdoc knew he had two in the bag. Russel, who was eyeing him with suspicion, was going to be a little tougher. Now it was time to take it up a notch.

  
“A huge park!” he said, gesturing grandly and saw both Noodle’s and 2D's eyes grow wider.

  
_This is actually going better than I planned._

  
_~ **You are one sick twisted creature.~**_

  
_Thank you._

  
Noodle looked like she could hardly contain herself now. “With lots’ of rides?” and he gave them his best winning smile.

  
“Best thrrrrrill rides ever! Lots to see and lots to do!”

  
“Well...it would be nice to go see Mickey Mouse...and Minnie...” 2D mused to himself, “...and I would really love to meet Donald...” he continued on, becoming oblivious to the others.

  
“Where is this place?” Russel growled, breaking his silence. He couldn't help but smile inwardly to see his question had caught Murdoc off guard. Murdoc’s generosity always came with a price and even though a trip did sound appealing, he wasn't going to follow him till he tried to get a bit more out of him.

  
“Uhhhhh, somewhere warm.” Murdoc answered, looking expectantly at him when 2D broke in.

  
“I don’t want to go in the Haunted Mansion though, Murdoc. That place gives me the willies.”

  
“We’re not going to fucking Disneyland, you walking poster boy for brain damaged freaks!” Murdoc snarled flicking his still burning cigarette butt at him.

  
“Ow! What was that for?”

  
Ignoring 2D's petulant whining, Murdoc turned back to the other two resetting his game face. “C’mon mates, it’ll be fun! I’ll even drive.”

  
“Wait!” Russel stared down Murdoc seeing the flaw in the man's pitch. “This is England man. There is no warm place this time of the year.”

  
**_~Better think quick...or maybe do something original, just tell the truth,~_ ** the Voice urged him.

  
“Uh well... It’s in one of the warmer parts of the country. So in my mind it’s warm.” Murdoc heard an exasperated sigh in the back of his mind.

  
_**~I thought not.~** _

  
With expectant glances from Murdoc to Russel, Noodle and 2D eyes begged for the big man to say yes. Looking back at Murdoc, Russel only saw the face of a man who had to have been a snake-oil salesman in another life. There was nothing sincere about Murdoc and his motives. Yet more often than not, he somehow was always able to lead people down paths they normally would avoid. He heard a funny noise and looked over to see that 2D was looking like he was going give himself an aneurysm waiting for him to agree to this holiday.

  
Coming over, Murdoc to put a friendly hand on his shoulder. "What do you say Russel?" he said in such a smooth way it sounded wrong. "You don't want to disappoint the children, now do you?"

  
“All right, we’ll go," he heard himself saying against his better judgment. "Guess you’re right about taking a little break from the Studio.” Noodle and 2D squealed together in unbridled excitement while Murdoc gave him a slap on the back.

  
“Fantastic! We meet in half an hour at my Winnebago.”

  
“UUGGHH!” Noodle's squeal turned into a sound of disgust and she wrinkled her nose. “We’re going in that smelly thing?”

  
Murdoc shot her an irritated look. “Well seeing that all my other rides are either destroyed or out of commission, I guess you don’t have much of a choice now do you?” Murdoc then gave them another one of his best smiles. "It’ll be a blast guys! Too-de-loo!” and he walked back into the car park.

  
They all stood there in stunned silence and finally, Noodle spoke first. “Did he just say ‘too-de-loo’?”

  
“You trust him?” 2D nervously asked Russel, suddenly feeling a little unsure about what he had just agreed to.

  
“No. Especially when he says something like that,” Russel answered with a frown, still trying to figure out what made him say yes. “Whenever he speaks like that there is more to the story than he’s letting on?”

  
“Well then, do we really want to do this?” 2D whined and it made Russel chuckle. They would go. His curiosity was now kicking in and he had to find out what was really behind Murdoc's latest scheme.

  
“Noth’n else better to do," he replied, giving his tall, nervous friend an amused look. Then he couldn’t help but add. "Unless you want to make it best two out of three again D.”

  
“We’ll go.”

  
2D walked hurriedly down the hall to the stairwell leading to his room only to suddenly find himself standing in the cafeteria. “I didn’t know I was hungry.”


	4. THIS ISN’T DISNEYLAND

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc takes the band to the "Park" but things don't go as he planned.

** THIS ISN’T DISNEYLAND  **

****

It was the crack of dawn and Murdoc had been driving all night, impatient to get to their destination. With the exception of a few pit stops (they refused to use his “perfectly good” toilet), and a near deadly collision, over all he was feeling quite happy with himself. He’d gotten them this far without even breaking a mental sweat trying to convince them to come along.

Granted, this ‘holiday’ ruse was a stroke of genius, but it never ceased to amaze him that even after all the stunts he pulled, the three hadn’t caught on to his methods and once again agreed to go along with his plans quite willingly. In his opinion, they all secretly must have some death wish, because one of these days that’s exactly where he would lead them.

That is if this time wouldn’t be it.

For now though, he needed to figure out what to say next when they arrived. Where he was taking them was going to need a bit of explaining. He took a long drag of what was...what his 30th cigarette?

Like he was counting.

 ** _~Why not tell them the truth?~_** the Voice rudely cut into his thoughts. It had been blissfully quiet, making the trip till this point, pleasant enough.

“What?” he said out loud to it, forgetting the others were around and didn’t know about his newly acquired cling-on. “The truth is for sissies!”

“Oi! Did you say something?” 2D asked sleepily, while stretching out on the front passenger seat where he had slept uncomfortably during the night. He didn’t know what was worse, the smell or the stickiness of the chair. God knows what was on it.

“No.” Murdoc growled, silently blaming the Voice for making him slip up. The last thing he needed was for the others to find out about it.

Coming up to the front looking as bright and irritatingly chipper as always, Noodle gave 2D a good morning smile then turned her attention to Murdoc.

“Are we there yet?” she asked with that mixture of excitement and impatience, making him give her a nasty glare.

“No!” he said gritted teeth. Damn, he needed a drink!

“Hey, you got any doughnuts and coffee in this heap?” Russel chimed in from where he sat at the Winnebago’s ‘dining area’. It seemed they were taking turns to annoy him.

“No!”

“Can I bum a cigarette from you?” 2D dared to ask and Murdoc looked toward him to see the undeserving idiot was wistfully eyeing his pack of cigarettes on the floor between them. He snatched the pack up as 2D was bending for it.

“NO! Don’t make me stop this wagon and…”

 ** _~You sound just like your ‘ol daddy dearest.~_** the Voice remarked teasingly, making Murdoc suddenly remember ‘family’ trips with his dad and brother. Being reminded of those unfortunate times was like a splash of cold water in the face and he took a deep breath, forcing himself to relax. He was half way there with his con and he couldn’t lose his cool with them.

Yet.

“Just shut up and sit down!” he grumbled and was rewarded with only a few moments of silence till Noodle broke it.

“Murdoc?” she called to him from where she now sat back on the couch with Mike the monkey. “Mike is hungry. Do you have any bananas?”

“THAT’S IT!” he screamed and slammed on the brakes, making everyone fly forward. Cortez hit him square in the back of the head screeching into his ear while 2D hit the windshield, making a satisfying thud. Looking over, Murdoc couldn’t help but smile seeing first the prone body of 2D on the floor, then the long crack across that side of the windshield. Watching this sod hit or get hit by things never got old and now he had a nice souvenir.

“I think I hurt something.” 2D groaned in a daze as he climbed back into the passenger seat. “You bloody well need seat belts in here.”

“UUGHH! What the shit is on this floor man? Don’t you ever vacuum?” Russel exclaimed. The large man walked up to the front while trying to fish something out of his mouth. When he did, he held it up to show Murdoc and even he couldn’t tell what it was or where it came from.

He pulled out another cigarette and lit it up. “No! It would ruin the Funk Shuee of my wagon! Now if all you kiddies are done whining we can move on. We’re almost there.”

He put the Winnebago back into drive and as promised, he stopped in twenty minutes. It was time for phase two. Their chit-chattering for the rest of the ride had kept him from being able to come up with the next setup, so he was going to have to make it up as he went along.

Throwing the shift gear into park, he jumped up. “Here we are! Don’t forget your sunscreen! It’s going to be a grrrrreat day!” he said hurriedly as he made his way past them and to the door.

The others though didn’t follow, but instead went to look out the front windshield. All they saw surrounding them was gray, drizzly English countryside with a grove of gnarled old trees in front. The sun was hiding behind clouds, so even though it was mid-morning it looked more like almost nighttime. Mist clung to the ground obscuring it, giving the whole scene an unearthly feel while a wind blew through the trees moving the branches, giving them the illusion as if they were alive...and waiting. No one and nothing was around.

“C’mon mates! We don’t have all day for gawking!” Murdoc said merrily, trying not to let the feeling of impatience and annoyance take over. He couldn’t lose them now. He was almost to his goal.

“Uh, where is the park?” 2D asked, feeling a little uneasy now and his head was starting to hurt again. He had been pain free since he took a handful of pills last night, but now that encounter with the windshield had brought it back.

Next to him, Russel leveled his eyes on Murdoc. “Yeah, and isn’t there supposed to be a parking lot?”

“And people.” Noodle said quietly, “Don’t forget the people.” Mike hooted something in agreement with her.

Murdoc looked at their already doubting faces and tried to think of something to say. “Oh. Well. Uhh.”

**_~Lying is only going to make this worse.~_ **

_Quiet! I’m trying to think._

**_~How can you?~_** the Voice replied testily, **~ _It’s only me in here and you aren’t listening!~_**

Unable to help himself, Murdoc hit his head to shut the voice up and was surprisingly rewarded with an idea.

He gave the four what he hoped was a confident grin. “Well, you see this is the road to the back of the park. I have a friend you see...”

“You have friends?” they all interrupted together. Then looking at each other, they started to laugh.

Put off, Murdoc glared back at them. “Of course I do!”

“Name one.” 2D demanded in a moment of lucidity stopping Murdoc short. He looked blankly at them unable to come up with anything until he heard the voice in the back of his mind snicker. That brought him back.

“The one that works in this park of course...uhh Barbie! Yeah! Her!”

“Oh, _that_ kind of friend,” Noodle smiled and looked at the others. “Sure she won’t slap you when she sees you’re here?”

“You don’t know what you are talking about, all the girls love me!” he protested, making them all laugh again.

**_~Have I ever told you really like these guys?~_ **

Murdoc snarled at them, furious that they were not helping him by going along with his plan, no matter how thin it was. “Let’s get on with it!” he said angrily and slamming open the Winnebago door, he stomped out. When their laughter was spent they stood up and looked at each other to see who would go first.

Russel began to take a step forward, then stopped. “Ladies first,” he motioned to Noodle, but instead 2D went for the door.

“I said, ladies first D.” Russel repeated himself and pulled him back to make room for Noodle, who had Mike following right behind. The monkey looked up at 2D showing all his teeth in what only could be a smile.

“Since when does an animal go before me? I’m human!” he whined to no one as he watched the two go outside.

“Brains before beauty works for that one,” Russel chuckled as he gestured to his now confused friend to go out next.

As 2D took his turn leaving the Winnebago, he forgot to duck under the low door-frame. The next thing he knew, he was looking up at the four of them sprawled halfway out of the Winnebago, with his head ringing and a piercing pain in his head.

Russel, still inside, was laughing. “If we decided to call you the number of times you have dented your head since we met you…” Russel got out while trying to stop laughing. “...how much would that be Noodle?”

“Oh at least eight thousand,” she giggled, while helping 2D get all his limbs together and help him up. “But 8000D just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Up and somewhat unsteady on his feet, 2D reached into his pocket getting his bottle of painkillers and poured out a handful.

Murdoc groaned inwardly. This was the last thing he needed.

“Give me that you pansy!” he knocked the pills out of 2D’s hand and then grabbed the bottle, throwing it over the wagon. “You’re already useless without you being a complete zombie on top of it.”

“My pills!” 2D looked desperately for his scattered pills and when he saw one, he reached for it, but Murdoc was quicker and scooped it up, throwing it far off in to gray mist. He gave 2D a hard slap on the back as he steered him toward the grove of trees.

“You don’t need them! It’s time to go cold turkey my friend. Sort of like _rrripping_ off a band-aid. Take it from your good ‘ol chum, Muds, you’re better off without them.”

The exit now clear, Russel stepped onto the ground below the Winnebago and just as Cortez flew out, he slammed the door on the bird. A weak squawk came from behind the door, making Noodle giggle again. “Oops.”

“I hate that bird.” Russel mumbled more to himself than to her, satisfied he was able to keep the loud obnoxious bird inside. Besides, knowing Murdoc, he wouldn’t notice his bird was missing. Out of sight, out of mind.

A strong gust of cold wind blew up and he rubbed his arms as he began to shiver. “Hey man!” he called over to Murdoc. “You said it was going to be warm! I didn’t bring a coat!”

“What do I look like?” Murdoc snapped back at him, “The fucking weather man?” as he stalked off toward the grove of trees, whose pathway was now obscured by a curtain of mist.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” 2D said to Russel and Noodle as they walked up next to him.

Watching Murdoc slowly disappear in the mists of the grove, Russel grunted. “So do I, but we’re already in it this far,” he grumbled. Mike voiced his agreement and went after Murdoc.

“Mike! Wait!” Noodle called out to the monkey and disappeared into the mist leaving 2D and Russel by themselves.

“Hold my hand?” 2D finally asked, looking at Russel hopefully.

“I got your back,” Russel grumbled irritably, shoving him forward and walked a few steps behind.

As they walked through the grove, the mist created a blanket of gray around them which along with the canopy of the trees blocking the view of the sky, made Russel wish he had brought along a flashlight. Along with the 2D’s stream of nervous chattering, Russel swore he could hear strange whispering voices that came and went as the wind blew down the grove. There was no doubt in his mind they were being watched, but by what, he had no idea and he didn’t want to know.

With an occasional glance to either side of him, Russel tried to keep an eye out for Noodle’s figure that was fading in and out of the mist just ahead of him and 2D. Even though he knew she was more than capable of taking care of herself, he couldn’t help but feel a familial protectiveness for her and losing sight of her bothered him. Losing enough people who had been close to him over the past years, had made him promise he wouldn’t let it happen again. He tried not to dwell on the creeping feeling that Noodle disappearing was almost a certainty and pushed 2D to walk faster till he could make out her small figure clearly. A feeling of relief swept through him and he gave his friend another shove to make him move faster so he wouldn’t lose sight of her again.

For 2D, he tried to concentrate on the story he was telling Russel to make the time going through the grove faster, but just like the mindless tale he was now hopelessly lost in telling, the grove seemed to go on and on. Occasionally he could swear he saw figures moving in and out of the trees from the corners of his eyes and he would talk faster. Then what sounded like a moaning scream, carried on the wind.

He stopped his story, looking back at Russel. “Must be near the Spook House, wouldn’t you say?” he asked nervously, hoping Russel would confirm his suspicion.

Russel frowned deeply, shaking his head, “I don’t know man, but I certainly don’t like where this is going.”

2D kept looking around waiting for something (or someone) to come out at them at any moment. Then in the distance they heard some kind of scream. Stopping in his tracks unable to take another step, he looked madly around for anything that might be coming for them.

“Now I have a really b-b-bad feeling about this!” he stuttered and felt another stabbing pain brought on by his headache. He desperately wished he had been able to take his pills. Even one would have dulled him enough so he wouldn’t care where he was. He gave Russel a desperate look, who returned it with one of trying patience.

“C’mon 'D,” Russel said as calmly as he could and gave 2D another little push as he now could make out some large gray shapes ahead. “I see the end and we can’t leave Noodle with that nutcase.”

When they finally stepped out of the grove, what they found on the other end left them in stunned silence. There stood Murdoc in front of the gate of an old massive cemetery, surrounded by a crumbling wall of brick and iron. It stretched out before them into the mist with no visible end in sight and even though they had walked out from the shade of the grove, the darkness had stayed; as if it hung over the land refusing to let any day light shine down.

Murdoc flashed them all a big smile as if he was a host welcoming guests to his home. “Here we are!”

“This is the happiest place on earth?” 2D asked in disbelief. Where was the big castle? Where was the train? Even worse, where was Mickey?

Noodle, who stood just a few feet away, had been there staring out at the graveyard with her jaw dropped as the others had walked up. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she was thinking similar sentiments as her friend “This is the park?” she asked quietly to no one in particular.

“Best park there is!” Murdoc beamed at them because to him, this really was, “Used to come here all the time with some of my old mates to do all sorts of things I’d have to kill you for if I told you. Good times. Good times.”

Noodle looked at him in disgust. “I know you are twisted, but you are also a very disturbed man.” She couldn’t finger it, but something about this place disturbed her like nothing ever had before. That included all the nasty little ‘holes’ she found exploring Kong.

Looking out on this graveyard, she felt a dirtiness creeping toward her, wanting to cover her in its filth and it was unwelcome. She then felt the familiar feel of Mike’s hand taking hers while his tail wrapped around her leg. The comforting touch drove the dirtiness back. She looked down at Mike giving him a grateful smile, then looking at the others, it seemed that only Murdoc was oblivious to what she and the others in their own way sensed.

“It’s all a matter of perception, deary,” Murdoc had gone on cheerily. “All you need to do is open your mind a little.”

He made a move toward the gate, but none of them followed. Looking back at them with a mixed look of irritation and surprise, he then snarled at them. “Bloody Hell! It’s not like you’ve never seen or played in one of these before! Stop acting like a bunch of sissies!” and he turned back around to open the gate.

Russel cleared the distance, grabbing Murdoc roughly by the back of his shirt. “Why are we here!” he demanded angrily, furious with himself for once again allowing himself to be led by the nose by this Satanic freak. He had known better from the start, but he had gone along anyways. Not any longer though. This time he was going to make him tell the truth, even if that meant using a little physical force.

“Excuse me?” Murdoc looked at him with a feigned innocence that only made Russel want to hurt him more.

Before he could take a swing, 2D walked over with Noodle and Mike close behind. “He asked why are we here,” he said, surprised to hear anger in his voice, but then he wanted to be at Disneyland and this was not even close.

Murdoc seeing that he was starting to lose control of things tried to think of something convincing to say. “Why to have fun in the park, of course!” he finally said, with a little indignation. Secretly a part of him was a little hurt by their reaction. After all they had fun in one of these before, so why were they not being adventurous now? “Like I said, we all needed a holiday.”

Unfortunately for him, that wasn’t enough for Russel, who spun him around and slammed him hard into the gate. “Ow!” Murdoc heard himself shout, “No need to get touchy mate, we’re all friends here!”

Russel was done with talking nice. “Look, you ass! I could be home right now, sitting in my nice warm room, relaxing with some good food and beer. Instead I spent all night in that skunk-ass smelling wagon of yours with no jacket, no food, only to find myself here with you and whatever it is your planning.” He got into Murdoc’s face, “So why don’t you do us all a favor and tell us why we’re really here before I make you a permanent resident. Ya hear?”

**_~Busted! Told you lying would get you nowhere. Maybe if next time you would lis…OWW!~_ **

Murdoc had slammed his head against the gate and thankfully it shut that nit up. When his eyes cleared, he saw the other four looking at him quizzically. Well, except for Russel. He looked as if he wished he had been responsible for that hit. Then it occurred to him that annoyingly, the Voice was right.

He hung his head not wanting to look at them and mumbled, “Its Jeena.”

This only made Russel shake him hard, obviously unsatisfied with his response. “Out with it!”

“It’s Jeena!” Murdoc said loud enough so they all heard, “She’s ruining my beauty sleep!” Even dead, that woman still seemed to be able to put him in humiliating situations with the others.

 _What did I ever do to deserve this?_ he thought.

 ** _~Do you want the short or long list?~_** came the unwelcome answer from the Voice.

“What?” 2D asked, confused by Murdoc’s statement, “What does Jeena have to do with you and your beauty sleep?”

“Doesn’t matter how much sleep he gets, he will always be as pretty as a monkey’s butt,” Noodle piped in, and Mike started to chatter in protest.

She smiled down at him apologetically. “Don’t worry Mike. I wasn’t talking about yours.”

“She won’t let me sleep!” Murdoc broke in, feeling a little more than put off that they weren’t taking him seriously and gave them a hard glare. “I keep seeing her, and it gets worse every time! I have hardly gotten any sleep in almost two weeks!”

He was rewarded by more looks of confusion and disbelief. Gratefully, it made Russel loosen the grip on his shirt.

“Two weeks?” Russel asked in disbelief, “But she’s been gone for months now!” He could feel he was losing his control with this self-absorbed man again. Why was Murdoc bringing up Jeena now? Unlike for the rest of them, he hadn’t said a word about her since the day she left. It was like she had never even existed. Now he was claiming he had been having dreams about her for weeks and they were bad? Damn, but if Russel couldn’t help but want to hear what crazy reason Murdoc was going to try on them!

For Murdoc though, this was just about as bad as it could get; he had to be honest. “Well that’s just it,” he said a little hesitantly. “She’s…uh well, she’s **_gone_**.” He looked down at the ground under him, not wanting to meet any of their eyes as Noodle gasped.

“Do you mean?” she asked quietly, obviously trying not to think the worst.

“Yeah, she’s **_dead_**! Pushing up daises! Six feet under! Worm food!” he shot back loudly and looking up at them, he felt a rush of satisfaction to see their shocked faces. Looked like telling the truth did have some payoffs after all and now they were paying attention. “You see, it seems she didn’t adjust going back after all and slit her wrists,” he continued on without the slightest hint of empathy in his voice; he wasn’t about to let them know how much it really affected him. Then he got thoughtful for a moment as the nightmare replayed in his mind. “She did down a good brand of tequila though. That was really good thinking on her part considering her frame of mi...”

Furious with his remark, Russel kept Murdoc from finishing by throwing him against the gate again. “This is **_your_** fault!” he yelled into Murdoc’s face. How could that man be so callous about the dead? Especially Jeena.

**_~That’s what her husband told you. Maybe there’s something there.~_ **

“How’s that?” Murdoc replied painfully while managing to look offended at Russel. “I didn’t tell her to go back! In fact I told her what would happen if she did.” He narrowed his eyes on Russel, “And did she take my good advice? No!”

“Since when have you ever given good advice?” Russel answered, not backing down. He was not going to let this liar get the best of him this time.

“At least once and obviously it was to her,” Murdoc growled back.

2D stepped up right behind Russel with his usual lost look, “So what does having a holiday in a graveyard got to do with all this?” he asked, trying really hard not to get confused by all these revelations.

Murdoc looked at the black-eyed man and couldn’t help but think at that moment that if a person yelled “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, the blue haired sod would say something like, “Oh goodie! I hope they’re serving smore’s too!” Still, if the others were as dumb as him, they would have already been at their destination and he wouldn’t have to be going through this interrogation.

“I need to bring her back,” he admitted to them and a sly smile broke out on Noodle’s face.

“Need to or want to?” she asked suggestively.

**_~Yeah, which one?~_ **

This line of questioning was hitting a little too close to home. “What’s it to you which one it is?” he snarled, answering the two of them.

“Just curious,” she replied, obviously happy with his response.

**_~Just making sure.~_ **

“So let me get this straight,” Russel continued angrily. “Jeena’s dead, and you want to bring her back. So instead of just trusting us by telling the truth, you decided to feed us this whole ‘Holiday’ crap to get us here?”

**_~Told you, you didn’t have to lie.~_ **

Ignoring the Voice’s smug response, he straightened himself up quite pleased about the scheme he had come up with. “It was a great plan and it worked, didn’t it?” He couldn’t help but feel quite happy about that. One must always take pride in their good works.

“So, are we going to dig up her body and reanimate it?” 2D spoke up again, looking a little queasy. For all his devotion to horror and gore, the realization of actually having to deal with a real dead, rotting body wasn’t all that appealing, and it made Murdoc wish he could smack 2D.

“No, you brainless sod, she isn’t buried here!”

“So what are we here for then?” Russel snarled, getting a good hold of Murdoc again, just in case he wanted to bang him against the gate again. It felt good doing that.

Murdoc’s face suddenly brightened up with that question, “To go to Hell of course!” he said excitedly. Just thinking about it made him imagine all the wonderful things he would see and do. For him it was going to be a grand holiday. The others though, weren’t quite on board yet, but seeing Noodle with a sad pitiful look on her face, he could tell he still had a chance. If he could convince her, he knew the others would follow.

“She’s in Hell?” she asked, her voice still sounded like she couldn't believe what she was being told, “But she’s so...”

“Oh for the love of…” he interrupted her and rolled his eyes. They obviously didn’t know Jeena as well as they thought they did. She was not the saint she had portrayed herself to be for them. After all the things she did to him...look what she was doing to him right now! When you’re dead, you stay dead and don’t bother the living and especially their sleep. He was about to tell them that when it occurred to him that getting nasty would not help him right now. Instead, it was time to turn on the charm.

He gave Noodle what he hoped looked like a sympathetic smile. “She killed herself, deary,” he told her in what was hopefully an equally empathetic tone. “That’s where she ended up, regardless of what she thought.”

Well..." 2D spoke up, “If you wanted to go there, couldn’t you have used the Hell Hole back at the Studio?” Murdoc grimaced at forgetting all about the hole that was a direct route to Hell that he had found a few years back upon discovering the bunker buried deep in the mountain. Damn that was a good question! Leave it to the idiot and his moments of clarity to put a wrench in his plans.

 ** _~So…~_** The Voice broke into his thoughts **.~ _Are you going to tell them that it actually leads to a pit holding one of Adramalek’s pet fire-demon and even with your extensive knowledge of the Black Arts you can’t get past him? Wait! Did I just say ‘your extensive knowledge of the Black Arts? What do you know, I made a funny!~_**

Murdoc furiously slammed his head on the gate again and was rewarded with what sounded like a cracking noise and everything went dark for a moment. When he came to, he could feel the small trickle of warm blood on the back of head and the Voice was silent. Satisfied, he turned his eyes to the other three who all wore a mixture of concern and confusion on their faces.

 _Good. If they’re worried about me, that means things have a good chance of going my way again,_ he thought happily and then continued on. “What? Go in from the arse when I can do it more grandly through the mouth? This time I’m not sneaking in, I want to make sure they know I’m coming.”

“You’ve actually been to Hell?” Noodle looked a bit amazed by what he said and he gave her and indignant glare.

“What do you think I do with all my extra time? Lay around in my Winnebago reading dirty magazines?

**_~Let me answer that one for her. Yes.~_ **

Murdoc chose to ignore the fact the Voice was back. He had these three right where he wanted them, so now all he had to do was spin a little more yarn and they would follow it and him to Hell. Literally.

“I’ve been there quite a bit since we discovered the Hell Hole,” he said, thickly laid with arrogance. “And now I know the place like the back of my hand.”

Russel gripped Murdoc tighter and looked hard into his eyes, trying to read if he was telling the truth or not. “You do?” he asked doubtfully.

Murdoc gave him what he hoped was the most sincere look he ever faked. “I wouldn’t be lying to you when it’s for something important like this, mate.” he answered, making sure his voice was dripping with sincerity while crossing both set of fingers behind his back. He hoped this little bit of concern he was showing for Jeena was enough to convince Russel.

Except, Russel was proving to be a little harder to crack. “So you actually know another way to get there? From here?” he pushed on, still staring hard at Murdoc, waiting for any change in his eyes that might betray him.

Murdoc in turn, could tell Russel was getting real close to throwing him against the gate again, so he had to choose his words carefully this time. “Well, not exactly,” he heard himself say to his disgust. Damn! It was harder to think straight with the big man's face in his. His breath smelled worse than the landfill. Russel grabbed him harder, getting ready to toss him on the gate him when he spat out the next bit of truth, “But I do know where the doorway is! You see this is where me and my old friends would get together and...”

“No!” Russel yelled angrily, throwing him hard this time, unable to hold back. “We don’t need to or want to know about your shit past!”

**_~Neither did I, but I have no choice. You really are one-twisted person aren’t you?_ ** **_Your dad must have dropped on your head a little too often.~_ **

Wincing in pain, Murdoc glared at him. “Anyways, there is a crypt with a door that’s supposed to go there. All I need is to figure out how to open it.”

“Why not just call up Satan himself to ask for her back? The way I see it, you’re always going on about what good buddies you are with him so there really no reason why the three of us need to be a part of this little mess your planning. Just… do whatever shit you do and call him up.” Russel said, making Murdoc let out an exasperated sigh and roll his eyes again.

“This kind of request can’t be done over ‘long distances’. It requires a personal audience with all the pomp and circumstance that goes with these kind of requests. Besides, like I said before; we all need a holiday.”

“So going to Hell to get some girlfriend of yours is supposed to be a holiday for us?” Russel continued with his hard questions, while 2D, who was looking unhappy with the proposal, turned his head wistfully back in the direction of the Winnebago.

“It wasn’t some girlfriend Russel. It was Jeena.” Noodle said sadly.

At the sound of her voice, Russel's demeanor changed; his face softened and to Murdoc's relief he loosened his grip a little. Looking over his shoulder, Russel gave her a quick smile and sympathetic look. “Don’t worry Noodle, we know,” he said softly.

“She was not my girlfriend!” Murdoc protested as he tried to wiggle out of Russel's grip while he was being distracted by Noodle, “She was **_married_**!”

Unfortunately that ended up being the wrong thing to say. Instantly Russel's attention was back on him and his hands became like vice grips as he started to shake Murdoc hard. “Quit split’n hairs! For all your big talk of knowing the place, the truth is you don’t know shit about it or your Master!” Russel said, not holding back the disgust in his voice for the excuses Murdoc was peddling, “You’re obviously too scared to go on your own and want us to come with you to hold your hand. Right?”

Murdoc gave him an ugly look at the insult. “That’s it! Let me down you bloody gorilla on steroids! I know exactly what I’m talking about and it just throws me that all of you won’t take my generous offer for a once in a lifetime holiday by letting me show you around while we go get Jeena.”

He struggled to get free again, but Russel kept a good grip on him. “I don’t know whatever made me think I wanted to take you sods in the first place, I’ll just go on by myself!” and with a satisfied smile, Russel shoved him one more time into the gate for good measure, then dropped him onto the ground.

Murdoc picked himself up grumbling and put his hand on the back of his head. He pulled it back front and saw that the bleeding was not as bad as it felt. Damn the Voice, these idiots, but most of all, that witch Jeena! With one last snarling look at the three, he opened and walked through the gates leaving the others watching him walk off, lost in their thoughts.

“I miss Jeena.” Noodle finally said.

“Her lasagna was the best.” Russel mused, remembering some of the best cooking he ever had. A few moments of silence hung between them until 2D let out a heavy sigh.

“Murdoc has the keys to the Winnebago, doesn’t he?”

“I guess that settles it.” Russel grumbled and they set off after Murdoc, who was walking very slowly and seemed to be arguing with himself. Russel loudly cleared his throat breaking Murdoc from his self-dialogue and turning to see them there, Murdoc gave them a smile that not surprisingly showed a hint of relief.

“Good to see you decided to come along mates!” Murdoc started up happily. “Knew I could count on you guys to help your pal Muds out! I pro…”

Russel then cut him off. “We’re doing’ this for Jeena, not you.”

Instantly, it wiped the smile from Murdoc’s face. “Bloody Hell, c’mon then. Just stay close and be quiet,” and he stalked off.

“Why does he want us to be quiet? We’re in a graveyard!” 2D asked and Russel shrugged.

“With that man, you shouldn’t ask any questions you may not like the answers to.” Then he set off, while the others followed with Mike bringing up the rear.


	5. THROUGH THE DOOR AND TO THE GATE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The band heads toward the entrance of Hell

** THROUGH THE DOOR AND TO THE GATE **

****

As they trailed behind Murdoc, they were able to get a closer look at what they were walking through. Statues all around were disfigured with some posed together in obscene postures and each crypt they saw lay open. Most of the gravestones were overturned or smashed and the mist which clung to the ground hid the trash they walked on. Every once in awhile they would see some sign that someone had been there recently; even a pack of condoms and handcuffs left behind on one tombstone.

“Makes you **_not_** want to wonder what Murdoc and his ‘friends’ would do here,” Russel commented out loud.

“He’s a Satanist. Who knows or who would really want to know?” 2D said, as he did his best not to step over any obvious graves. He couldn’t help but feel like there were hands under each one waiting for him to step on just the right spot to pull him down. He shivered involuntarily as his mind unwillingly showed him grisly images of death by zombies. They were never quick or nice.

Ahead, they saw Murdoc stop in front of a large area that looked as if it was hit by bombs with shattered stone, deep holes and blackened rock scattered around. They heard Murdoc talking angrily to himself as he looked at the blackened field, and then started to stomp around it.

“What was that all about?” 2D asked as he looked at the other two.

Russel grunted to himself nodding to the sight. “My guess he had something to do with what happened there.”

“What do you think it was?’ Noodle wondered and Russel shrugged.

“I don’t want to know and I don’t care. Let's get moving, we’re losing him.”

A little further ahead, Murdoc stopped in front of what looked like a large crypt that had slowly emerged out of the mist as they got closer.

"Here we are!” he announced, gesturing eagerly for them to walk faster. When they stopped next to him, it became obvious that this was not a large crypt at all, but a sizable mausoleum. Compared to everything else in the graveyard, it was an amazingly beautiful structure in perfect condition.

Made of pristine white marble, it was stood at least two stories tall with large ionic columns that surrounded the building, making it resemble an old Greek or Roman temple with massive ornate double doors. The only thing that told it was otherwise was the inverted pentacle and cross overlay on them. Torches placed in stone goat’s heads on either side of the doors were lit. With the misty grayness that surrounded them, the light of the torches that would have normally been a welcome sight, only gave Russel, 2D and Noodle a sense of foreboding.

“Glad to see somebody is keeping up the old hangout,” Murdoc said wistfully, momentarily forgetting the others were there.

**_~I have to say it’s quite impressive in a “Beware!” sort of way.~_ **

Murdoc nodded to himself in agreement. Only some poor unknowing fool would be stupid enough to step any further toward the doors.

_And one thing I’m not is a fool!_ A low chuckle came from the back of his mind.

"Enough of that!” he muttered at the Voice, “We got work to do!" He walked up to one of the massive doors and put his ear to it trying to hear if anyone was inside. He then knocked and tried to open the left door. It was locked. Looking around to see if anyone else besides his group was around, he gave a satisfied grunt and fished out what looked like a hairpin from inside his pants.

Noodle grimaced, “Where did he have that?”

“Why does he have it?’ 2D felt like getting sick again, and Noodle put her hand over her eyes.

“Hey man! We can all see you here! That was like, unnecessary!” Russel called over to Murdoc, who was working the pin in the lock.

“SHHHHH.” Murdoc said barely above a whisper as he continued to work and the three looked at each other confused.

**_~Are you sure you know what you’re doing?~_ **

_Of course I am! I’ve done this millions of times to this door._

**_~Do you want to tell your friends why you’re acting so cloak and dagger?~_ **

_No._

**_~Thought not.~_ **

The lock unlatched and Murdoc cracked open the door to the building to find it still looked the same on the inside all these years later. He waved the others to follow and they entered into a large open floored room that was as immaculately clean as the outside. Both floor and walls were made of the same pristine marble with more goats head torches placed along the walls. Coming in from such a darkened sky to a well lit room, the band members had to squint till their eyes adjusted to the brightness of the room. As their sight normalized the saw that both of the opposing side walls had four unassuming doors each with wood chairs set along the empty wall space in between. Then almost at the same time their eyes caught the massive door on the opposing wall to the entrance. Made of some dark metal, it dominated the wall with symbols and archaic designs painted in dark blood red all over it. An aura of malevolence radiating toward them from the door giving the impression that it was trying to keep something in on the other side.

“Is that it?” Noodle said quietly. The hairs on the back of her neck raised as she thought she heard noises behind the door. Instinctively, she readied herself for whatever might be behind there if they did have to go through. She was sure that whatever was behind it wouldn’t let them through without a fight.

Next to her she could hear 2D gulp audibly. He began to shiver, finding himself wanting to go back outside. Suddenly the graveyard didn’t seem so awful anymore. You had a lot more running away room than in here.

“It what?” Murdoc asked peevishly. Unaffected as the others were by the door, Murdoc was too busy looking around for any signs of someone else being there. From what he remembered there was always one member on duty and so far no one had even so much made an appearance.

**_~Lucky for you,~_** remarked the Voice _. **~Didn’t they promise you a fate worse than an eternity in Hell or something to that effect?~**_

_Bite me._

“The way to your so called park.” Russel said, his deep voice reverberating from the walls making it sound demonic. 2D gave out a squeal and jumped behind him only to fall helplessly over himself and land in a mess on the floor.

“Don’t do anything to me!” he cried out in terror looking wildly around trying to figure out where the voice had originated. “I’m just along because Murdoc has the keys to the Winnebago. Take him first!”

“For crying out loud D, It‘s my voice!” Russel grumbled making it bounce off the walls again. “There ain’t nobody here but us.”

Ignoring the little drama, Murdoc gave the large door a passing glance and gave it a dismissing gesture. “Oh, that door,” he replied. “Lets just say _if_ you were given a choice to a slow painful death or what‘s behind it, I‘d choose the slow death anytime.” Then he saw the sign he was looking for; a coat draped over one of the chairs. Someone _was_ around. Quickly, he closed and relocked the front door.

“Well, no time for sight-seeing," he said hurriedly. “The longer we take, the longer Jeena’s in there.” He quickly walked into the room toward the large door, but then made a sudden left to the third door on the side wall.

Murdoc went up to the wood door. He gave the handle a quick turn to find that it was as he guessed it would be, locked. So he stared at it trying to think of what to do.

**_~Seriously, do you really know what you’re doing.~_ **

_Since when, do I not?_ He thought indignantly.

**_~Where do I begin?~_ **

“When you want to open a door, you usually put your hand on the knob and turn,” Russel growled as he walked up behind him.

Murdoc looked at him over his shoulder. “No shit. It’s locked.”

“Why don’t you try to pick this lock?” 2D interjected shakily, pointing to where Murdoc had taken the hairpin out of his pants. He seemed to only have half recovered from his panic attack and looked well on the way to having another at any given opportunity that presented itself.

“My cheating key won’t work on this one,” Murdoc explained, "Now shut up so I can figure out how to open this sodding door."

“Do you have to chant or something like that then? You know, like monks do?" 2D continued on anyways, making it harder for Murdoc to think. Sometimes he was almost a bad as the Voice.

Noodle looked at 2D with a grin. “If he had to with a voice like his, it wouldn’t open,” and the two snickered.

“Shut up Noodle,” Murdoc muttered as he continued staring at the door. He was at a loss and only had so much time left before whomever was on duty would come back. What the hell was he going to do?

“You know, I’ll be getting hungry real soon and you know what I’m like if I don’t eat,” Russel said breaking his thoughts. “So get mov’n.”

**_~If you hadn’t done what you did here a long time back we wouldn’t be in so much of a rush now would we?~_ **

_Well do you have any ideas?_

**_~Put the key in the keyhole of course,~_** the Voice answered smugly.

“I don’t have the bloody key!” Murdoc said out loud.

“Well that’s obvious or we’d be on the other side by now.” Russel sounded like he was getting more impatient by the second and it didn't help him think any faster.

**_~Yes you do!~_** the Voice said exasperated. ** _~It’s around your neck!~_**

Murdoc took off his necklace and looked at it. All he saw was a circular string of ebony black beads with a smaller string of beads ending with an elaborate inverted cross that had notches on it. So unlike his previous necklace that was less ornate and even though it was really not to his taste, Jeena had given it to him and for some reason it seemed right to wear it.

**_~The notches mean it’s a key you idiot!~_ **

_Oh, yeah._

He put the cross in the door and turned it. There was an audible click as the pins fell into place, and he turned to the others smugly. “See? I told you I would get us in,” he gloated, “I knew what I was doing all along. I was just trying to play up the moment.” He opened the door to see into the pitch-blackness on the other side. Murdoc looked back at the torches hanging from their stands on the walls. Even with the chairs they were too far up to get a hold on to one and he knew he didn't have much time left to go looking for a ladder.

_**~Use the rosary.~** _ the Voice suggested.

_The what?_

**_~The beaded rope with the inverted cross you just used as a key! Do I have to tell you everything? What kind of Satanist are you anyway? Jeena knew more about this than you did.~_ **

_Well she ain’t here, so she must not have known everything. Besides, since when does a Satanist use a rosary?_

**_~ Well obviously she knew enough to make it for you and it worked opening the door. Besides, it kind of looks like one.~_ **

“Earth to Murdoc! Hello!” Russel whacked him on the back of the head.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking! O.K.?” he murmured under his breath impatiently. “You can’t rush genius.”

_**~Oh, all right! I’ll help you again! Really, take notes for next time.** **“**_ **Illustro Amplexus Obscuram”.** ~

Murdoc decided to play up the moment. He closed his eyes turned his face up and held out the beads in front of him. **“** **Illustro Amplexus Obscuram.”** The beads began to glow with a black light and soon it was bright enough that they could see thirty feet down the corridor. He looked back at the others with another smug look on his face, but only Noodle seemed impressed.

“Could you guys now say I’m a shining star?” Murdoc said proudly, as he put the ‘rosary’ back on.

Russel was unamused. “No matter how much Shinola you put on a piece of shit...”

Mike started to chatter, jumping up and down as they heard the sound of the front door opening. Whoever left their coat was coming back.

“All right mates! Let’s move smartly here. Let’s go!” and Murdoc practically pushed them into the passageway, shoving 2D’s head almost to the ground so he wouldn’t knock himself out on the door-frame. When they were through the door, it slammed behind them on its own.

“What was that all about?” Russel demanded angrily, but Murdoc ignored him as he looked at the door. There was no keyhole or knob which meant there was no going back.

**_~You have stumbled in! You have tumbled in! Now you can’t get out!~_** The Voice sang merrily.

_What?_

**_~‘_ _Babes in Toyland’. 1961. You know, Annette Fonachello? Tommy Sands? A classic.~_ **

_You sure it isn’t some kind of porno? Sounds like it would make a good one._

**_~Respect the classics man!~_ **

“Does this mean it’s too late to change our minds?” 2D whined nervously, making Murdoc sneer at him.

“Well I guess it bloody well does, doesn’t it? You’re half the man your mum was. Grow some balls,” and turning, he started down the passageway.

As the group walked, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the direction as the passageway turned to left, then right straight for a while, then down, to the left and finally back up. At one point, Murdoc found himself humming the ‘Babes in Toyland' song and he heard the voice snicker in the back of his head.

**_~Told you it was a classic.~_ **

He walked over to the side of the wall and banged his head hard on it.

**_~OW! Why must you keep on doing that? You’re only hurting yourself more than me!~_ **

“Have you guys been noticing that he’s been doing that a lot lately?” 2D observed from a few yards back and Noodle giggled.

“Maybe he is finally trying to knock some sense into his head.”

Murdoc looked back at her with a dirty look, then continued on grumbling to himself.

As the walk dragged on, 2D, Russel and Noodle began playing a guessing game of _“What am I”_ to pass the time. It was 2D's turn again and he was struggling with someone to come up with. Unfortunately the pounding in his head was making it hard to concentrate.

“I’m...in a band. I have blue hair. I play th...”

“That’s the third time you’ve described yourself.” Russel interrupted him, exasperated by his friend’s lack of originality. “Can’t you think of something else, or is there really nothing up there?”

“I, I don’t know. My head really hurts and my pills are back by the Winnebago. It’s hard to think of anything else.”

“Here let me help you think of one. A bird,” Noodle offered and 2D brightened up.

“Oh good one. I fly. I have a beak...hey wait! You gave me the answer!” Russel and Noodle looked at each other and laughed. Sometimes it was just too hard to pass up teasing the simple minded man.

“Will you shut up back there?” Murdoc called from where he walked ahead of them. “You’re getting to annoying. I might just have to speed up and leave you all in the dark.”

Ignoring him, Noodle turned to Russel, “If the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, do you think it implies to what we are doing?”

He looked at her with a big grin. “I think with Muds leading the way, it cancels it out,” he said loud enough for Murdoc to hear clearly and was satisfied to see the man clench his fists.

“SHUT! UP!” Murdoc yelled making his voice echo up and down the passage. Russel and Noodle laughed heartily while 2D was still trying to come up with something beside himself to describe.

As they continued their walk, Murdoc looked in his pack of cigarettes for another one. It didn't look promising.

_Damn only three left._

**_~Forgot to bring a few extra packs, huh? Well this is as good a time as ever to quit cold turkey. You know, rip it off like a Band-Aid?~_ **

_It’ll be a cold day in Hell when...aw fuck, never mind._

“Are we there yet?” Noodle called out to him and he ground his teeth together in annoyance.

“Don’t start up that again! It was old the last time we went through this!” he yelled back.

_Well,_ he asked the Voice. _Are we there yet?_

**_~I don’t know.~_** It replied without its usual superior tone. ** _~We’re not playing by Earth rules anymore. Time and distance become irrelevant here. We could walk for days and not get any closer.~_**

_Bugger._

Then he saw something glowing ahead, so he ran toward it with the others after him. The corridor widened up and at the end was a wide staircase. Glowing symbols lined the walls on either side as they went up with the stairs. About two stories up there was a landing with another door.

2D let out a big sigh of relief. “Thank God!” Then he let out a big gasp, “Wait! Am I allowed to say that here?”

Murdoc rolled his eyes to himself.

_What an moronic sod!_

They climbed up the stairs to find that the door was just like the one on the other end. Murdoc began staring at the door like he did with the other one.

**_~The key you idiot!~_** the Voice practically screamed, hurting Murdoc’s head.

“All right! All right!” he grumbled.

“‘Hey! Has anyone noticed he talks to himself a lot lately too?” 2D observed again and Murdoc had to restrain himself from turning around and hitting him.

“Shut up or I’ll leave you behind,” he said instead.

“No, you won’t.” Russel replied in a threatening tone.

After giving the two a nasty look over his shoulder, Murdoc put the cross in the door and turned it. The familiar click sounded and he opened the door.

Walking through, they found themselves standing on a massive plain that resembled a desert wasteland. Behind the door was a wall that stretched into a gray sky seeming to have no top and along its way, there were doors of different sizes and styles evenly spaced from each other. The wall and plain stretched out to what seemed to be infinitely long on either side, but the most impressive sight was what stood in front of them. An monumental archway with a dark cloudy, grey veil obscuring what may be on the other side. Standing far taller than the highest building in the world and looked to be miles long. Over the top of the arch an inscription read on a sign:

**“ABANDON ALL HOPE YEE WHO ENTER”**

“I thought that part would only be a myth!” Noodle said in awe of the sight.

“This is Hell!” Murdoc said pompously, “You have to show people you mean business here.”

“Business?” 2D gave him a confused look, “I thought we were on a holiday.”

“Well of course we are!” Murdoc replied indignantly and suddenly the door behind them, slammed shut. For a moment, Murdoc felt a twinge of apprehension, realizing there really was no going back. He shook it off. “Well that’s our cue! Let’s get moving.”

**_~You can turn the light off now.~_ ** the Voice commented on his still glowing beads.

_Oh...yeah. Uh…How do I do that?_

“ **Terminus noctis lux** ” it sighed tiredly.

He repeated the words to himself and the light faded away. This little gift from Jeena was coming in quite handy after all and for once.

After a few minutes of walking, Murdoc noticed that there was something off here. Except for the annoying nervous humming coming from 2D and the sound of their feet walking on the sand, this whole place gave him the impression that there in some kind of Limbo. No wind, no echoes, not ever the grayness of the sky seemed to move. It was as if the place was frozen in a moment of time; like a photograph and they were walking deeper into. Just like most of the cartoon characters he had seen do so many times before. The discomfort of being reminded that in reality that was essentially what he was, made him want to scream.

Not that he was scared, but just to let whoever he thought he was sure was watching their progress that he refused to be kept in that box. He was so much more than any cartoon put together. He was the best motherfu…

**_~Here we are!~_ **

Murdoc stopped suddenly at the sound of the voice breaking into his thoughts to realize they had indeed arrived at the foot of the Gate. Somehow they had covered the distance of what originally looked to be a good few hours walk in a fraction of the time. Looking back, the wall of doors behind them had melded with the sky looking as if nothing was there. Darkness ahead, nothing behind. It was yet another reminder that there was no turning back. Behind him, Noodle let out a small whistle.

“How did that happen?”

“Oh, well time and distance here are irrelevant, of course,” Murdoc said, trying his best to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

**_~You stole my line!~_** the Voice protested.

_Of course._

Looking at the Gate from this close he saw that what loomed in front of them did not have the first perceived hazy look, but had a mirror like quality to it; reflecting their images and the wasteland behind them.

Never missing an opportunity to admire himself, he regarded his image and was somewhat impressed at what was smiling back. Yes, he sure did cut quite a handsome figure wearing his best clothes and cape. One did have to give the Master something good to look at.

2D rudely reached over his shoulder to touch the mirrored blackness of the gate and Murdoc smacked it back out of his way.

“What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?” he growled at 2D. “You don’t just go touching things you know nothing about you dimwit!”

The blue haired man looked at Murdoc with a hurt look only an idiot could give.

“I just wanted to touch it to see if it was real!” he said petulantly and Murdoc gave him a withering glare.

“Of course it’s real! What did you expect it to be? A figment of your delusional imagination?” he shot back, then stopped 2D from answering by slapping a hand over his moth, “No, don’t answer that!”

Keeping his hand of 2D’s mouth he turned back around and reached out to touch the Gate himself. If anyone was going to get to be curious around here it was him. This was really his holiday after all.

He was surprised to find that even though it felt smooth and solid under his hands, as he pushed a little on it, the blackness began to give way and his fingers felt like they were going into thick pudding. There was a sensation of his consciousness turning in on its self and before he knew it, he was lost in his memories…


	6. WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Murdoc remembers his last night with Jeena...

** WHERE IT ALL WENT WRONG **

****

_When he woke up, he just lay there with his eyes closed while he heard the familiar sounds of the car park around him and he could smell her patchouli covering the stale, moldy air of the Winnebago. Her soft, warm body hugged up next to his and he could hear her even breathing telling him she was asleep. Unable or unwilling to move, it didn't matter at that moment. He had just been on what had to have been the best non-hallucinogenic trip he could have asked for. Why hurry a moment as good as this?_

_When he finally opened his eyes, he realized that he had forgotten about the cut on his hand. Looking at it he saw that except for a white scar where she cut him, it was completely healed._

_“_ _What the bloody hell just happened?” he finally got out._

_“_ _A religious experience. It was a version of ‘The Great Rite’," Jeena murmured back, waking up as she luxuriously stretched along his body. She then gave him a coy smile.  “Customized for the participant’s particular tastes of course.”_

_Out of curiosity, he picked up her hand where she had cut it to notice that there was the healed scar of her own. Placing his palm over hers, he made the observation that together, both scars made an “X”._

_She looked up lazily and noticed the scars too._ _“_ _Hmm, looks like we got a souvenir,” she said wearing a big smile on her face. Seeing her look at him like that, he decided once was definitely not enough._ _Leering, he reached over grabbing her._

_“_ _Let’s do it again!” and laughing, she tried to push him off the bed._

_“_ _Sorry. It was a onetime only deal and it took awhile to prepare. It takes a lot out of me. Drains the batteries.”_

_“_ _What do you mean?" he protested playfully. "You don’t look drained at all and I’m ready to go all night. Now that I got you here, you have a lot of making up to do so... OOWWW!” he yelled painfully, as she finally succeeded in pushing him off the bed and landed hard on the floor._ _“_ _That’s going to leave a mark on my perfectly good skin,” he grumbled up at her._

_“_ _Do you know what makes us different?” she asked, peering at him over the bed with a quirky smile._

_“_ _Let me see...you’re a girl, I’m a guy. You’re up there, and I’m down here. I know how to have fun, while you spend way too much time to yourself. Oh, and what was that one you said before?” He gave her one of his best leering smiles. “Oh yeah, your body is a temple while mine is an amusement park.”_

_“_ _That one was a good analogy, huh?" she agreed. "What I was thinking of though, is you’re into instant gratification and quantity while I’m more into experience and quality.” Jeena sounded way too smug for her own good, as she scooted to let him back on, “My way is far more superior and the effects last a lot longer.”_

_Murdoc gave her another leering look. “I don’t believe you.” His finger began to move across her body for the sheer pleasure of touching her skin and watching her react to it. It still amazed him how even in this cartoon form, her skin still retained its three-dimensional feel and softness. He could trace lazy circles for days and never get tired of the richness he felt touching it. Best yet, when he did, it never failed to distract her enough that he could either get a word or move in edgewise. The hardest part was getting to this point, after that she was putty in his capable hands._ _“_ _You’re always making these grand statements ‘luv, but this time you are just going to have to prove it to me. Hnn, hnn, hnn.” He made for another reach, but instead she flattened him onto the bed again, smiling happily down at him._

_“_ _I just did. So you’re just going to have to be happy with what you got. Besides, one day when you least expect it, everything you did and saw? It will come back to you.”_

_As she laid her body across his to reach for something, he saw the tattoo again of the snake eating his tail on the small of her back. His finger began to trace it, feeling the soft skin it was on and hoping this will get her back to where he wanted her to be. Wanting more._

_“_ _So, are you going to finally tell me now where you got this lovely little stamp?” he inquired as he continued to trace the tattoo._

_“_ _An ascension ritual when I became a full member in my coven,” she replied, in matter of fact tone. “It’s an Ouroboros. It symbolizes eternity. But if you were half the occultist you claim to be you wouldn’t have asked.” She playfully added but he knew she just couldn’t help herself digging in the fact that she knew more than him. Well, after what she just did with him he was more than happy to let it slide._

_She sat up with a bottle of rum in her hand, took a swig and then passed it to him. Now distracted himself by her being so compliant, he couldn’t help but want to find out more about her past. Who knows when it might come in handy._

_“_ _Now tell me why you left.” he said, a little too bluntly._

_“_ _Demanding ass aren’t you?” she said not too unkindly only to be followed by a clouded expression to cross her face. “Let’s just say that sometimes even though you want to stay, you feel compelled to move on.”_

_“_ _Then you ran away over some bloke,” She smiled at how he picked up the reason why and took the bottle back. ._

_“_ _He wasn’t ‘some bloke’. He was my ritual partner. Performed the Sacred Marriage and all that but then something changed a few years later.” Jeena became pensive as if she was reliving some old memory and was still trying to make sense of it._ _“_ _Honestly though? After all those years being happy, I don’t know really exactly why things changed with him, they just did. Suddenly I felt I had to get away from him, whether I wanted to or not.” She took another swig, “But that was an eternity ago.”_

_Jeena looked intently at the bottle, and instead of letting him have some more, she drank it all._

_“_ _Oi! Why didn’t you save some for me? That was one of the good ones!” Murdoc protested and she looked him square in the eyes._

_“_ _I’m leaving,” The sudden statement left him confused by what she meant._

_“_ _You don’t have to leave. It’s only...” he looked over at the clock, “Ten. The night is still young and we haven’t even gotten through the appetizers yet.”_

_“_ _What is it with you always comparing me to food anyway? Just listen to me for once, I’m going **back** , Murdoc.” She looked resigned, and it dawned on him what she was telling him. She was going back home to her husband and children. A surge of jealousy caught him by surprise. She wasn’t playing fair again and the frustration she always made him end up feeling was settling back in. _

_“_ _What? You can’t go back!” He couldn’t fathom why she kept on doing this to him and once again she was driving him to drink. He looked for another bottle, only to come up with none. He even couldn’t see a pack of cigarettes anywhere._

_“_ _I have to,” she said quietly, not looking at him as his eyes narrowed on her._

_“_ _You don’t want to,” Murdoc growled. “You’re running away again, that’s what you’re doing. Just like you obviously always have done, the way I see it.”_

_Jeena came back around looking like she was holding back something incredibly painful she didn’t want to face. “No, I’m not. I’m going back because of the kids. I have to. For them.”_

_“_ _If you do, you’ll slit your wrists and then you know where you'll be? In Hell!" He said unkindly, using all the anger he felt behind it. "You really can’t do them any good there, now can you?”_

_She turned on him, giving him a dangerous look._ _“_ _You know that doesn't happen with my kind. Besides, like I would take sage advice on child rearing coming from you, who has no clue on being a parent.” She snorted. “Even though you probably have fathered enough kids to make up your own baseball team.”_

_Damn if she didn't look even better all flustered and mad. Deciding not to take her bait for yet another argument, he sat up next to her and shoved all that frustration back down. He was going to get what he wanted and what he knew she wanted also. He gave her another leering grin as his finger began to wander on her body again._

_“_ _Until I find some little bundle under the door of my Winnebago," he said smoothly. "I’ll claim ignorance on your accusation. So don’t hold your breath ‘luv.”_

_Seeing her eyes close and relax he knew he had her back on the path he wanted her on._ _“_ _So let’s not worry about all this leaving talk and get back to what’s really important.”_

_At this statement her eyes flew open sobered and he knew he just blew his chance._ _“_ _What’s important is going back Murdoc. I’ll have to go back to my **real** life.”_

_“Ha! You haven’t lived your **real** life until you met me and became what you are right her, right now. That my dear is no lie.”_

_It was her turn to give him a frustrated look. He could tell he had her on that one._

_“I have a family and they need me,” she said with as much conviction she could muster “and that Murdoc is no lie.” He knew she was talking only about the children. She did have a point there although he wouldn’t say it. Instead he focused on someone else._

_“_ _What about that husband of yours?” he shot at her, letting a bit of possessiveness take over. It was like sharing and he didn’t share well with others. “He wasn’t much of a help to you now was he? What do you think he will be like now?”_

_She didn’t answer and looking away again, she climbed over him getting out of the bed._ _“_ _I have no reason or excuse to stay any longer,” and she started to get dressed, continuing to not look at him. “After what I just did for you, I consider us even. I don’t owe you anything more. It’s time to go back.”_

_This called for his trump card to be played. “And how are you going to explain your altered appearance? You’re a cartoon like me now, and a fine looking one in my opinion,” he saw a smile flash across her face and she paused. Taking it as a sign he was going in the right direction he continued on. “You said so yourself from the start you didn’t want to let them see you until you figured a way to turn back, so why the sudden rush? Let’s spend some time enjoying this new comaraderie.”_

_Jeena let out a  heavy sigh. “I figured out the way to change back,” she said with sadness in her voice and he could tell she didn’t want to do it. She liked herself as she was now. Hadn’t she once said she felt more like who she was really meant to be? Looking directly at him she confessed, “I’ve actually known how too for awhile now, I just didn’t so I could do this Ritual with you.” The confession hit him hard and he felt a pang of hurt. So much for his trump card, it come around and bit him in arse._

_“_ _All this time this time you‘ve been stringing me along? Letting me squirm like some bloody fool, for this?”_

_She drew herself up. “Tell me it wasn’t worth it.” She had him there. He knew that he would gladly put up with whatever she would dish out for another experience like that._

_All he found himself able to do was sit there, watching her as she pulled her boots on. Finally, Jeena looked at him without any expression._

_“_ _Thanks Murdoc,” she said tonelessly. “It’s been real,” and she started to down the Winnebago corridor to toward the front._

**_No, that last piece is all an act,_ ** _he thought angrily. **I’m not letting her get the upper hand this time.** _

_“_ _Wait!” he called down the hall. “You don’t have to leave... I mean right now.” He sounded pathetic. Just like most of the other girls he messed around with. Damn her!_

_She turned and looked back at him. It had worked though, and by what he saw in her eyes, he knew he had her. She wasn't anywhere near ready to leave and he grinned wickedly at her._

_“_ _I’ll show you what ‘lots of quality’ is all about. I’ll make you beg for more,” he growled, and a moment or two passed._

_THWACK!_

_Less than inch away from his face in the wall behind him was her knife with a pair of handcuffs hanging from it. Where did those come from?_

_He saw that she had those cat eyes again and she was wearing a wicked little grin also. “I’ll make **you** scream Uncle.”_

**_This is more like it!_ ** _he thought excitedly. **Bring on the main course!**_

_When morning came, he woke up and looked around to see she’d gone._

_“_ _Bloody Hell! She stole one from my book again.” he said to himself, and smiled. Damn, she was good! Then he saw that she had taken a bottle of tequila, his cigarettes and wallet with her also..._

                                         ***************************

 

_**~Jeena used those things to make that pretty ‘Necklace’ around your neck.~** _ The Voice said breaking into his reverie.

_How?_

**_~Really. Your saliva that was in the bottle she took. You backwash you know. That marked it to you and only you. The tobacco and alcohol for an offering...and other items I am not at liberty to say. Your Grimoire was quite helpful too.~_ **

_And my wallet?_

**_~Oh, that was just to irritate you.~_** the Voice chuckled.

“Wake up, Murdoc!” Russel thumped him on the back of the head again.

“What?” He turned and glared at him.

The large man eyed him impatiently. “Are we going to do this or what?”

“I’m not so sure about this,” 2D interjected, looking around for a way out. “I have a really bad feeling about this.”

“Don’t worry mates, we’ll be together every step of the way. What could go wrong?” He lit another cigarette and Russel gave him a hard look.

**_~Only one left...~_** the Voice reminded him and Russel followed up.

“When it comes to you? A lot.”

Murdoc looked confidently at the others. “Relax mates. Just think of this as a grand adventure and all the great memories we’ll have.”

“I’m not doing this for the memories.” Russel told him, then looked at 2D, Noodle and Mike.

“C’mon let’s go.”

Murdoc though, held out his arm to stop them. If anyone got the honors of going through the gate, it was him. He took a long drag and blew out the smoke.

_Let the ‘Holiday’ begin,_ he announced to himself.

The Voice was silent.

“Follow me.”  


** They all went in together and they all continued on alone **

**Author's Note:**

> Did that pique your interest? I will post a chapter every few days.


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